Brave New World
by serpentnine
Summary: Kain leaves his fledglings alone in order to raise the last of his brood;  Vorador seizes the opportunity.  Cowrite with HopeofDawn.  Chap 4 & 5 are action, if the first bit is too slow for your taste. Violence, torture, and tolerable grammar guaranteed!
1. Chapter 1

Kain was furious.

Not on account of any of them, and that was a very great blessing indeed. But that cold rage was nevertheless palpable as the forefront of a storm, and their Sire's displeasure set all of Raziel's brethren upon edge, made them cautious, made them snappish.

The move hadn't helped, either. From a comfortable manor house leagues outside Freeport, conveniently close to the largest inland road with all its many autumn travelers and merchants who'd not be missed for months, Kain led them towards the city itself, taking circuitous routes through deep woods and places without trails. There had been no explanation - not, of course, that one could be expected - but also none of the usual warnings of threat or discovery. No Sarafan, hunters, hostages to interrogate... nothing. On the old manor's balcony, behind them, a single large raven had watched their departure.

His fledglings followed Kain not into the finer districts near the wharves, where dwelt clean-scented but well-guarded prey - no, Kain led them to the slums, those tangled and decaying warrens infested thick with the scrapings of humanity, to a warehouse which leaned drunkenly against its neighbors, making of the leaking roofs a wide highway. Three of the exterior walls and some few of the interior were good stone; the warehouse would not catch fire easily. A cellar with several half-hidden entrances, once used for smuggling, was certain shelter from the sun. The mouldering structure had even supplied a day's repast - a prostitute and several common street thieves, the former probably serving as the latter's bait each eve. But there, the benefits to abiding in this wretched place ended.

This warehouse and its environs were not unknown to Raziel; he'd resided here for a span of time some decades before, though the place was considerably more dilapidated now. Turel had been with them, then, though Kain's second likely recalled little of that. The place had been small enough for the two fledglings then: now they were five. Worse, Turel was beginning to develop territorial imperative - the urge to claim and defend hunting grounds, as well as all manner of other objects or resources which caught his eye - and as usual, Dumah aped his elders.

While there were no gendarmes here, these streets were neither kind nor easy places. A mob could be just as dangerous as a Sarafan squad; even sufficiently determined highwaymen or a band of addicts might prove more than the youngest among them could handle.

The warehouse was far from ideal. Yet there Kain had left them upon errands unstated, to squabble over the four captured mortals. When he finally returned, Rahab was reading quietly atop a ruined wall, leaving the dregs of his meal to Zephon, who worried violently at the corpse. Dumah was just finishing, Turel still toyed with his mortal. Rahab glanced up, laying a strip of fabric across his place in the pages, and then Raziel could feel it too - an electric crawl over the skin, a sense of pressure, of weight, growing stronger as the flock of darksome bats reformed upon the sagging rooftop.

Moments later, Kain sought his firstborn's mind. _Attend me, Raziel._

Raziel immediately climbed to his feet, concealing his trepidation from his brethren even as he sent a wordless acknowledgment in reply. Whispering was still difficult, requiring a degree of concentration and mental discipline that he found hard to sustain. He was also uneasily aware of his own unformed worries at Kain's sudden decision to have them relocate, and aware of how easily his sire could pick them from the underthoughts of his mind.

Still, hesitation would only invite punishment, and in Kain's current temper, that punishment was likely to be severe. Leaving the others behind to their own pursuits, confident that they would not stray with Kain in residence, he climbed upward, picking his way up leaning, half-rotted staircases until he could pull himself upon the roof where his sire awaited.

"As you commanded, sire," he said simply, stopping a few paces away from where Kain stood, looking out upon the jumbled roofs and alleys that made up their environs. Close enough to be to hand, not so close as to have his sire mistake his approach as a precursor to attack, or to be spotted by any stray humans down below. It had taken him a great deal of time to understand such niceties; and having now dealt with it himself in the form of his younger brethren-Dumah especially-he often wondered how Kain had found the patience to beat such courtesies into him instead of simply killing him out of hand.

His Sire seemed not to acknowledge Raziel's presence for a moment - a good sign, for if the younger vampire had misstepped, Kain would have made certain he knew it. Kain's eyes narrowed slightly, gold gaze tense as he took the measure of their surrounds. Down in the twisting and oft-blind alleys, sugar-eaters roamed - those who had managed to buy or steal one of the little paper-wrapped packets of powder wandered in a narcotic haze; those who had not crept with murderous desperation. Through the wider lanes, carts loaded with farmers' harvests were filtering into the city, as did the first dim rays of dawn. A breeze wafted scents indescribable as hovel inhabitants emptied the night's chamberpots into the open sewers that lined the street.

The long mane of Kain's hair made a soft and silken shushing sound against the ridges of his armor as he tilted his head, listening. The voices below were wisely kept to a murmur, save for Dumah's harsh bark of laughter, quickly shushed. Ah, there: muffled cries and a scuffle a street or two away, as yet another mortal fell prey to his own kind, the price of life a few copper coins.

Such a waste of blood.

Kain considered, for a moment, scavenging the kill before the victim bled out entirely, but a glance at his firstborn suggested there was no need. Raziel's skin was faintly flushed and supple with feeding, his stance and the set of his mind were strong - albeit undeniably apprehensive. A pity Kain had no time to beat that trace of weakness from his whelp. "I depart this day to retrieve another of your brothers. Tell me, Raziel, how much of this terrain do you remember?"

*Another* brother? Four was more than enough in Raziel's estimation, though he was hardly fool enough to say so in front of his sire. "I remember our hunting grounds, and most of the places we sought refuge," he said cautiously. "Though I cannot say what still remains, and what has changed." The necessity of keeping his brethren secret and safe, as well as Kain's command, had prevented him from venturing far from their chosen lair. "You wish us to remain here in your absence, sire?" He tried not to let his doubts show in his voice; while there was hunting aplenty amongst the human trash of this place, it was also imperfectly defensible. It would be … difficult … to keep his fractious brethren quiescent enough to keep the neighboring humans from taking notice. All it would take would be one escaped human running to their local priest screeching about the foul and unnatural demons that had attacked him, and the hunters could well find themselves the hunted instead.

Yet surely Kain had already taken this into account. Which meant that there must be other, larger concerns that made such risks necessary.

The corner of Kain's mouth twisted, a subtle gesture but one that exposed the tip of a leonine fang. "I did not bring you here in sport, Raziel. Yes, you are to remain here, permitting none to venture further than this district." Kain turned his eyes back to the chaos of the city without. As he spoke, he placed images into Raziel's minds-eye, crisp and detailed as if freshly observed. "The watertower tunnels remain unsealed, as does the oubliette of clockmakers' square, and the sand warrens." There were thousands of boltholes in the sprawl, but some were better than others.

Kain's hands tightened on the broken railing that meandered along the edge of the rooftop. His nails split the weathered wood as if it were pressed paper. "At what distance can you sense Turel's presence?"

"Turel?" The question took a little thought. Second behind Raziel in age, Turel was reasonably advanced beyond the instinctual drives and foolhardiness of their other, younger brethren, but he had not yet truly come into his own power. Something that, in truth, Raziel had not truly achieved either, though he had naught but his sire to use in comparison.

"A half-mile easily," he answered finally. "A mile with some concentration, assuming he is not injured, or some other manner of interference." Holy magics, for example, could dampen or obfuscate a vampire's darksome aura entirely; as could the power of another, more potent vampire.

Kain growled quietly, a short rumble of temper. A half-mile would provide very little warning, though it was better than none at all. If only he could wait longer, even a few years... but then, if wishes were armies, he'd have taken the entire continent by now. "This structure is well-warded against a variety of threats, including a most unlikely one. Nevertheless, you will heed me now: should you sense another presence, as unlike me as Turel's aura is unlike yours, you shall make certain your brethren take shelter in the cellars here. Do you understand?"

Raziel inclined his head, acknowledging the command. "Yes, sire." Regardless of his own misgivings, Kain's orders were absolute. And yet …. "This presence. It is … another vampire?" For he had never known of any others, save Kain and his brethren. If another existed, one that his sire feared (no, not fear-Kain did not fear any creature, demon or vampire), how was it he had never heard of it?

"In a manner of speaking." Kain watched Raziel for a moment, his ancient gaze as always seeming to strip away those careful layers, the reserve and the caution, leaving Raziel bleeding and bare. "It will not strike at me, not directly. But if you permit your brethren to scatter, or draw heedless attention, it may seek you out." Kain stalked the few steps to his firstborn, lifted a hand, stroked a knuckle lightly up from the hollow of Raziel's throat. "Such a happenstance would displease me. Greatly."

Raziel's golden gaze grew heavy-lidded under that touch, a frisson of _threat/pleasure/protection_/ running over his skin as he tipped his chin upward fractionally, opening himself to whatever his sire demanded of him, whether pain or pleasure. Under that submission, however, there was a spark of fire at the challenge posed by this unknown threat. Raziel was a single-minded creature by nature; given a purpose, a goal, whether it be a hunt or a cellar full of fledglings to protect, he would pursue it with a focused ferocity that did not admit the possibility of failure. It was a weakness that Kain had exploited more than once in the past, especially when employing stratagems to keep his wayward fledgling in line; yet it was also a strength. If Kain commanded him to a purpose, Raziel would see it done, regardless of the cost. "I shall ensure it does not, my lord."

"Good." Kain permitted himself to savor the softness of his fledgling's skin, the sweetness of that proud and graceful submission. There was nothing of flinching in it, nothing of fear. Only a steel-textured yielding, an openness that delighted, that tempted - as beckoning as a blade forged perfectly to its master's hand.

The thought of losing this to Vorador's covetous grasp was new fuel for the frustrated rage. Tempting, too, to carve release for that emotion as well upon yielding skin... but Kain withdrew his hand. The sooner he left, the sooner he might be back. "I shall return a tenday from now, no more than two." The corner of Kain's mouth twitched. "And, Raziel. See that Turel refrains from disemboweling Dumah again."

And then Kain was gone, vanished with a breath of displaced air, his aura disappearing as if it had never been, leaving a void and an emptiness that ached. In the sudden silence, the hissing of angry fledglings was perfectly audible.

Raziel drew in a deep breath, then released it in a gusty sigh. To keep four fledgling vampires penned for a tenday would be challenge indeed. After one last look from his lofty vantage point, he headed back downwards, to the cellar where his brothers awaited.

Which did not mean that their waiting had been peaceable; Raziel could hear the snarls and scufflings long before he reached their lair. He pulled open the heavy door, slipping inside, and took in the sight before him: Turel and Dumah, locked in combat, grappling upon the stones, fangs bared as they vied for an advantage in which to sink them deep into a vulnerable point. Minor wounds already decorated pale skin, bruises blooming and fading, thin cuts that healed more slowly. And nearby … Raziel's eyes narrowed. Nearby, Zephon was greedily feasting upon the body of Raziel's own kill, now that Turel was too preoccupied to defend it.

"Enough!" he barked, striding forward. Grabbing Turel by the hair, Raziel yanked him forcibly backwards, driving a booted foot into Dumah's chest when the younger vampire tried to pursue the opening given to him. Sent sprawling upon the floor, Dumah rolled again to his feet, little the worse for the wear, while Turel twisted within his elder brother's grip, wrapping hands crushingly-tight about Raziel's wrist and growling.

"Release me! That little sneakthief stole my blade!"

"I stole nothing - I found it!" Dumah snarled hotly, pulling the dagger from his belt. The slim, flame-wave dagger, capped with an emerald the size of a pigeon egg, was a fine prize indeed. And he had found it: in a pocket of his cloak, actually. The route by which the blade had gotten itself *there* was of no concern to him - it was Dumah's now. "And now it'll find your lying tongue, Turel!" Dumah lunged.

Crouched beside the remains of Raziel's meal, Zephon swallowed hurriedly, scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. He tilted his head, watching the conflict before him with a fledgling's bright and curiously calculating eyes. Then his attention drifted to the other pair of near-corpses, the ones he'd not yet tasted. Dumah's was too perforated and too close to death, but Turel had taken the woman, and she lay sprawled and semi-conscious in a tangle of her own petticoats. His eyes narrowed in an expression of sudden slyness. On all fours, Zephon sidled like a crab towards the mortal.

Flinging Turel backwards, out of the way, Raziel intercepted Dumah's charge. One pale hand snapped out with unnatural speed, black-taloned fingers plucking the dagger from the younger vampire's grasp. The other seized the front of Dumah's tunic and lifted, Raziel pivoting as he used his younger sibling's own momentum against him and slammed him brutally to the floor. The impact shook dust from the rafters, and would have broken bones in a human. Dumah, however, was hardly so delicate a creature; he did not whimper or wail in pain, but merely lay where he had fallen, blinking dumbly at the ceiling as if trying to recollect how he had come to be there.

Turel snarled and stepped forward, his hand outstretched as if to take his treasure back-then stopped short as Raziel planted the point of it very precisely over his heart.

"Tell me, brother," Raziel said, deceptively mild. "Was it your intention to trade this for your evening's repast?" He tilted his head meaningfully towards where Turel had left his prey; a woman over which Zephon was now crouched, sinking fangs into her pale neck and drinking greedily. "For if so, it appears our newest addition has gotten the better bargain."

Caught on the horns of his least favorite dilemma, Turel curled his lips in a grimace of a snarl. Seize one prize, and the other would vanish like smoke... or worse yet, both might! And how like Raziel to vaunt his power and his many more years of training over his younger siblings! The injustice of it all was the twist of a thorn in Turel's side.

"Better to bargain poorly than to play the common highwayman," Turel said, in awkward rejoinder. Gathering himself, doing his best to conceal his chagrin, he reached up and closed his fingers around the flat of the blade. Perhaps something could be salvaged from this shambles. "If you aren't going to use my knife, return it to me. I'll need something with which to bind that whelp while I beat him."

Still sucking with a noisy lack of elegance at the prostitute's throat, Zephon looked up, alarmed.

Raziel considered Turel's demand without moving. After a few moments he relaxed, and relinquished the blade to Turel's hand. "As you like," he said, indifferent to Zephon's plight. "Gag him, however, if he squalls too loudly. The humans here are not likely to be curious, but with enough noise, *someone* is bound to take exception." A few screams or cries in the slums were commonplace. The sounds of ongoing torture, less so.

Glancing down at Dumah, he straightened, hauling Kain's third-born up with him. "On your feet, Dumah." He easily slapped aside the younger's vampire's attempted-and still dazed-blow, and cuffed him about the ear. "You'd do well to finish off your human as well, before Rahab begins to have ideas-or before *I* do."

Turel let out the breath he'd been holding. Oh, the humiliation of begging Raziel for his own belongings! Gnashing his teeth, he turned his ire upon a far softer target, heavy frame moving fast. Zephon bolted, scrabbling straight up the rough stone wall and into the rafters with a fledgling's instinctive dexterity. The maneuver, however, only put him some eight feet off the ground - nearly within Turel's standing reach, very much within jumping distance. On his second try, Turel seized hold of Zephon's ankle, and dragged him down to hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. A heavy knee in the center of Zephon's back kept him from scrabbling away. "You're bloated as a tick, newborn," Turel sniffed disdainfully. "And you've kept me from my amusement. Seems to me, you owe a measure of blood and recreation both."

Zephon struggled, thrashed. "An... and what if Dumah goes through your bedroll?" he panted. "I can watch your things, I can..."

Turel leaned back and frowned, eyes narrow in consideration.

Rahab stepped wide around the both of them as he climbed down from his perch, leaving his faint ball of glowing magelight anchored in midair behind - largely because he hadn't actually figured out how to move the magical manifestations, yet. He was more compact of frame than his brothers, though still not slight. Rather, his was a swimmer's build, sleek and strong. "I confess little interest in the dog's breakfast that Dumah left," he said, tucking his book beneath his arm as he headed towards the heavy door. "I'm going someplace quieter. How long must we abide here?"

"As long as our sire wills it," was Raziel's uninformative reply as he watched an irritable Dumah try to decide what was more important-scuffling with Raziel, or finishing his meal. But at Rahab's annoyed grimace, he relented. "At least a tenday. Perhaps longer. Stay close; and be mindful of your surroundings."

Dumah, having finally decided that challenging Raziel was not likely to be nearly as enjoyable as testing Turel, nor garner him anything more than serious injury, finally turned to go hunch protectively over his meal, growling under his breath. The thief-soon to be former, if the bluish cast to his skin was any indication-was hardly any great prize, but it was *his*, and he wasn't about to share with anyone!

Rahab nodded, accepting his brother's cautionary warning without bristling. As a very new fledgling, he'd been placed in Raziel's care more times than he could recall, whilst Kain dealt with Dumah's excesses. Bridled early, he did not bite too fiercely at the bit now. "A tenday? Then what..." he started with a frown, casting forth his awareness. But Kain was scarcely a shadow at the border of Rahab's consciousness - he had to be very distant indeed, and maybe distracted besides. The last time their sire had left them so, he'd returned with... brows drawn together, Rahab glanced towards the youngest among them.

Trapped beneath Turel's weight, Zephon still panted. The older vampire's eyes narrowed. "What exactly are you proposing, neonate?" he growled.

Half-crushed as he was, Zephon's voice was wheezy and breathless. But there was swift calculation in the yellow eyes that flickered between Turel's face and the rest of the room. "... Dumah already helps h-himself to what is yours. Wh-what will you do when you must leave to hunt, and he remains?" Turel's gaze flickered involuntarily over to where Raziel stood, and Zephon twisted a little, baring his throat by the barest inch. "...uh-it is obvious that Raziel does not care about-enforcing what is yours. But I-I could watch. Tell you if the others pilfer …"

Across the room, Raziel nodded soberly as Rahab drew the correct conclusion from Kain's absence. He kept his misgivings to himself, however. Kain would make as many vampires as he willed, and it was not Raziel's place to protest otherwise. Though Zephon and Dumah, especially, were not likely to be happy with the added competition for both blood and their sire's favor, capricious as it might be.

Turel cocked his head. As he drew breath to speak, he paused, eyes abruptly narrowed. Zephon smelled of panic, of desperation... that was to be expected. But not that mealy under-current, the one that suggested deliberate untruth. Turel leaned closer, inhaling deep. "Your first mistake," he rumbled, fisting a sharp-nailed hand in Zephon's red hair, "is in presuming that Raziel need enforce anything for me. Your second..." he dragged the fledgling's head back, "is in believing me fool enough to swallow your lies."

"I don't -!" Zephon gasped, and then shrieked as his elder brother's long fangs found his throat.

Rahab arched a brow at the scene before him, glanced to Dumah where he was slurping away the last of his brigand's life, and then looked back to the eldest of Kain's spawn. "I don't want another," he stated levelly. Several of the brothers he already had weren't turning out very well, to all appearances. Not that his Sire had made mistakes, of course not. But over the passage of years since their raising, something unfortunate had clearly happened to at least two of his brethren. Hn. Perhaps that was the point. Rahab brightened. "Unless... do you think he means to replace one of the defective ones?"

Through the noise of Zephon's cries and their own preoccupation, it seemed the others had not heard Rahab's suggestion-something Raziel was most grateful for. He was in no mood to break up yet *another* battle between his brethren, defective or not! He levelled an quelling stare upon his second-youngest brother, but could not quite hide his sardonic amusement completely.

"I would not be so cavalier about encouraging our sire to cull 'defective' vampires, Rahab. For who is to say that Kain's assessment not might someday find you or I lacking as well, and subject us to the same fate?" He did not *think* Kain was displeased with what he had wrought so far, even with some of his kin's … eccentricities. But attempting to predict the actions of his sire was a fool's game. Kain would do as he willed.

Still, he could not quite disagree with Rahab's assessment. He could only hope that it would change, given enough time. "This is only a temporary confinement," he added, reaching out to smooth a palm down the back of Rahab's neck, enjoying the silken feel of the younger vampire's skin, the fragile line of his spine exposed and vulnerable to his greater strength. "In time Kain shall return, and we shall move again. With any luck, it shall be a place where we need not be quite so forcibly intimate with each other."

Rahab ducked his head at the correction, and nodded. He'd not thought of that, though he saw now that he should have. Though, to be sure, the intimation that Kain could turn against his firstborn and most-favored was nothing short of absurd. Raziel was the golden child, the treasured one, trusted with all manner of tasks, and the only one among them for whom Kain's undivided attention was not an invariably agonizing experience.

In a way, Rahab understood Turel's streak of jealousy very well indeed.

And then Raziel's hand descended on him, stroking over his nape-length hair and the back of his neck, lingering over the subtle ridge of each vertebrae, and all higher thoughts went skittering away like a handful of dropped coins. Rahab exhaled slowly, savoring this very fundamental chemical acknowledgement - the yielding sense of shelter and of threat, as if all his worries about the move, his brethren, his books, and Kain's purpose had receded. It was not so intense as the experience of submitting before his sire, but the sensation was very much a kindred one. Rahab's eyes, palatinate blue and utterly unlike his siblings', slid shut as he pressed subtly back into that sedating touch. It was like taking refuge in a tiger's embrace. "Not all of the intimacies possible here need be forced, brother."

"There is truth enough in that," Raziel agreed, pleased at both Rahab's obedience and his responsiveness. Then a particularly piercing shriek from Zephon-abruptly cut short-reverberated against sensitive ears, and he grimaced slightly. "It seems that remaining here would not be conducive to them, however." He tilted his head, thinking. "You have never before been to Freeport, correct? It might be wise to learn the byways and other secrets of your new environs." Kain had warned them not to venture too far; but Raziel was certain he did not mean that they should mew themselves within these walls like frightened rabbits. Even if Raziel attempted to enforce such an edict, the end result was likely to be blood on the walls-and not of the human variety.

Rahab nodded in the affirmative, thoroughly pleased and quite proud, though he endeavored to keep his expression tightly controlled. Left to his own devices, he did not tend to roam far in hunt or exploration, preferred the quiet places, or the deep ones. Such places, of course, were typically poor in prey. Raziel's excursions, on the other hand, were wide-ranging affairs which often reaped good rewards. They were always, at the least, opportunities to learn more, and with the added inducement of being trusted with secreted places... how could Rahab refuse?

As Rahab hurried to mount the cellar steps, Turel glanced up, caught his eldest brother's leveled gaze. With the briefest of snarls, he paused to cut a long strip of fabric from the hem of Zephon's cloak, and roughly gagged the flailing fledgling with it. "Get over here, Dumah, and hold his arms," he ordered brusquely. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, just as Zephon had done a minute before, Dumah obeyed eagerly. His quarrel was forgotten and his meal was now a corpse; perhaps he could take his own entertainment once Turel was finished.

The warehouse was dim, even the shafts of morning sunlight that filtered through the holes in the roof were muted and faint. Outside, the day was cloudy enough to begin with, and the pall of burning coal that inevitably hung over a city this size dimmed it further. Bits of loose rubble and trash clinked as Rahab made a book-sized hollow in the debris that choked one corner. Checking the oilskin wrapping one last time, he tucked his text in and covered it over, proof against his brothers' idle malice, and then returned to meet Raziel as he emerged from the stairwell. Too excited to contain himself entirely, Rahab shifted his weight from one foot to the other, awaiting Raziel's lead.

Having satisfied himself that Turel would be content to remain within the warehouse, at least for the moment, Raziel mounted the stairs and rejoined Rahab, light-sensitive eyes narrowed against the feeble morning sun. The time of day was not ideal for concealment; daylight might not burn vampires to ash as the humans believed, but it would weaken them. Fledglings were especially susceptible, their strength sapped by the advance of the day. For now they would be able to shrug off the sun's effects; but Raziel would have to ensure they found shelter during the hours the sun was at its height, for Rahab's sake if not his own.

Added to that were the difficulties posed in moving unseen, especially since none of Kain's progeny had yet learned his ability to weave illusions; not even Raziel could yet don a human mask and pass unnoticed amongst his prey. In the lightly populated lands about the manor it had hardly mattered, the surrounding forest and marshland alike providing ample concealment for any roving vampire possessed of a modicum of woodcraft. But to move within the teeming masses of a city such as Freeport-and hunt without being seen-required far more care, and a wholly different set of skills.

Yet for all the disadvantages to venturing out during the day, there were benefits as well. The human population of the city was mired in its own concerns, their own daily routines. For the most part they would be oblivious to the undead predators moving in their midst, so long as said vampires did not draw attention to themselves. It was also a perfect time to watch and learn the patterns of their prey; the movements of the Watch, and the church, the ebb and flow of merchants and sailors. Choosing one's prey within the bounds of the city was a matter of patience and swift action-and the knowledge of what humans could disappear without causing undue consternation amongst their fellows. All these things, Rahab would need to learn. Given his nature, however, Raziel felt certain his younger brother would be an apt pupil.

"Follow me," he murmured, and moved down the narrow gap between the two ramshackle warehouses that flanked their own refuge. It was more gutter than alley, in all honesty, piled high with reeking offal. But it led seaward, towards the docks, and Raziel moved with the assurance of memory, picking a meandering course amongst the low roads of Freeport, from gutter to drainpipe to labyrinthine cellars, connected by smugglers' tunnels and other byways.

Rahab watched carefully his elder's every action, and copied them as best he was able, drawing the hood of his cloak up to shade his face. He kept his hands loosely fisted as he walked to conceal sharp nails - though his were scarcely different from a human's. That much, he knew to do from the times he'd accompanied his brethren to raid caravans. As they navigated the derelict places of the slums, the two vampires nevertheless passed within touching distance of a dozen mortals or more - sugar addicts, waifs and orphans, the diseased and the infirm. They drew no attention from the trashpickers and drunkards at all, or only brief and huddled glances - a fact that was nothing short of astounding. Rahab found himself glancing back with incredulity at a cripple who blankly extended his battered cup to the vampires, just as he did towards every other passing figure.

It was almost as if... as if there were so many humans crowded here, that anything humanoid in appearance was assumed to be a member of that race, without thought or careful study. It seemed impossible, suicidally foolish, and yet...

The younger vampire was acutely conscious too of the differences between the way he moved, and Raziel's confident grace. Rahab darted, moving in the shadows when there were any to be had, pausing to break up his outline, stepping high to avoid shushing his feet through the debris. His sibling *strode*, as if neither concealment nor secrecy mattered one whit. Rahab did his best to follow suit, but even still there were other differences - in agility and in strength. Once out of the sight of men, Raziel leaped easily atop a broken chest-high line of masonry; Rahab had to dirty his palms in scrambling up, and once he misjudged the depth of a puddle, wetting his boot uncomfortably with the acidic liquid.

Then they turned a corner and the sight made Rahab catch his breath, a reflexive and very unnecessary gasp. The short alley emptied out onto a road. Oh, they'd crossed lanes and byways before, under the eyes of handfuls of mortals even, but this... the road was paved in cobbles, and was wide enough to turn a coal cart and horses entirely around. Both sides were thick with merchants. The babble was dense in the crisp autumn air, the sound was like a waterfall's roar; men and women of every description passed so thick before them that Rahab could only just glimpse a dim and beckoning alley, similar to this one, on the other side of the conflugence. So many colors and creatures and sudden movement and, and...

A mortal suddenly appeared near them, a ragged man with a small flat basket, and Rahab startled badly, jerking back with a muted hiss. But the human was paying him little heed. "A pretty, me Lord? A pretty for your catamite? A mantle to keep 'im warm while 'ee waits?" the vendor approached Raziel with a gap-toothed smile, too broad and too inviting, flourishing his wares broadly while leaving his right hand unencumbered. The basket held but a few tin bangles, some wilting posies, several lengths of dyed fabric. "Or a packet mebee? A flighty one, 'ee is, a little something would go far to _sweeten_ 'im. Best prices in all..."

Raziel bit back a snarl at the human's insinuating tone. "Nothing of yours is of interest to me," he snapped. "Begone!" How dare this filthy mayfly creature cast such aspersions upon Kain's own progeny! Rahab was destined to be the foundation of a new Empire, as were they all-an immortal heir to a power this human could not even imagine. For this man to insinuate that he was little better a pox-ridden whore, a piece of bought flesh; it would be only justice if he allowed Rahab to feast upon the man's life in recompense!

The human cringed, a practiced cowering that nonetheless allowed him to sidle closer. "No harm intended, me lord, no harm. Jus' trying to get by, is all …" Bowing low over his basket, he backed off to one side, clearing their path. Yet he still hovered close enough to offend both vampires with his stench, and as Raziel brushed past, a filthy hand darted out, snake-quick, to cut the lacings of the coin-purse at his belt.

The crowd ahead was a very great distraction, but Rahab's senses were not a human's. Small, quick movements and subtle sounds were preternaturally bright to him, drew his attention inescapably. Rahab could not miss that furtive theft, the quiet clink of coins. "Hold!" he barked, darting to seize the petty thief. With a cry of his own, the mortal dropped his basket and fled, only to be jerked back by the grip on his ragged shoulder-cape. The man was bigger than Rahab, with several stone and a hand's-height over him - closing his ill-gotten coins in his fist, the pickpocket swung at his captor.

Rahab caught the blow in the palm of his hand, as if warding off a child's assault. The human twisted, desperation lending a surprising amount of strength, trying to run-and Raziel's hand closed about that wrist, wrenching it up and twisting it painfully backwards, where the thief could not see the black talons that adorned pale fingers.

"A thief as well as a fool, I see," he snarled.

"Lemme go," the man panted, twisting wildly as he attempted to pull away from that inexorable grip. "I didn't mean nuthin'-I swear, me lord, no need for the Watch …" He cried out as the grip on his wrist tightened, forcing him to kneel on the filthy cobbles.

Raziel caught Rahab's abortive movement out of the corner of his eye as the fledgling stepped forward, suddenly intent upon the pinned prey before him. It was instinct more the true hunger, he knew-Rahab had fed well only a short time previous. _Hold, Rahab,_ Raziel Whispered, concentrating upon the mental touch upon the younger vampire's mind, forcing his order past the ever-present bloodthirst and burgeoning territorial instincts. _We cannot kill the creature-not here and now. Observe our surroundings. What do you see?_

Rahab recoiled, blinking at the realization that he'd meant to take the unclaimed and proffered mortal right where the creature knelt. He'd not had to tamp down that instinct very often; when hunting on the roads, Kain and his spawn typically subdued small caravans or merchant groups in their entirety, so the fledglings were free to gorge immediately after fighting. "I..." Rahab swallowed, eyes darting to the wide street and all the humans that walked it. But none seemed interested in the disturbance from the dim alley.

Rahab lifted his eyes, scanned the wooden rooftops around them. The buildings here were of marginally better construction than the ones deeper in the slums, some with bars on the windows, or shutters. A rat scurried along one wooden cornice which still bore traces of faded paint, single-mindedly fleeing the vampires below. A child's avid gaze peered from the corner of one window, an interested and thoroughly entertained spectator. A far more furtive movement behind a bin of refuse drew his attention - a mouldering pile of fabric and beer fumes shifted, sprouted a hand, which nervously gripped a makeshift dagger, simply a small bar of metal with a sharpened edge. Rahab's mouth drew into a grim line. The background commotion from the crowd ahead was so great that he still could not hear the second thief's heartbeat or breath, even knowing that he was there. _We are being watched,_ the younger vampire replied, handling the mental communication with a level of skill impressive for his age, albeit more tenuous than Raziel's.

_Yes,_ was the simple reply, the mental touch tinged with approbation. Raziel did not need to look to know what Rahab had found; both experience and the prickling of instinct told him all he needed to know. i_Pathetic creatures such as these, weak as they are, rarely run alone. They oft run in packs with others of their own kind, for protection, and also to pull down larger prey than one thief might be able to handle alone. Upon occasion they may also serve a master, a human who has risen to command a larger territory and demand tribute from his lessers. Even so, we could kill this mortal easily, and his comrades, should they be fool enough to come for us. The threat they pose is in the attention such a brawl would bring; in this place, we cannot afford such scrutiny._ In the dark hours of the night, they could have brought down their prey with none the wiser. The thief would have simply been another nameless victim to disappear into the city's stews. But during the day, the risks were simply too great.

The Whispered communication had taken only moments; and now, Raziel returned his attention to his victim. "A reminder, I think, that you would be wise to choose different prey next time-and to refrain from insulting your betters," he mused coldly. A moment's consideration, and then his grip tightened inexorably, crushing with inhuman strength. A sharp twist, and the thief cried out in shock and pain as his wrist folded, bones fracturing under that relentless grip. Satisfied that a lesson had been dealt-though not necessarily to the thief-Raziel released his captive, and kicked him brutally back out into the street. "Now begone, before I regret my mercy!"

The minor commotion caused a few nearby heads to turn; but when it became apparent that it had been caused by a nobleman dealing out his own justice to a back alley thief, interest swiftly turned into indifference, and those observers returned to their own preoccupations.

The sharp-choked cry and the dull splinter of bone raised a shiver up Rahab's spine, a subtle tensing - such screams heralded weakened prey, meant easy food, and it was no simple matter to resist that allure and keep his mind upon the lessons proffered.

Rahab watched, eyes narrowed, as the pickpocket fled mewling into the crowd. Behind him, the second thief did the same, scuttling back the way they'd come, his terror scenting the air. Neither vampire had set hand upon the second man - it had merely taken one small, carefully calculated and calibrated act to inspire fear. With guardsmen and merchants, typically several deaths were required before the survivors tried to flee, in Rahab's experience. How had his brother known the difference, to change his tactics and choose a course with such ease? It was nothing short of incredible.

Rahab nodded slowly, ducking to recover the small pouch of coins. He knotted the broken drawcord to repair it, and proffered the purse to his elder. _Is it... is it possible to know whether these ones do serve such a master?_ he asked, thinking of his own Master. There'd been times when one of his kin, Dumah especially, had tangled with a group of mortals too strong for him, and had come crawling back to his brethren wounded and downcast. Kain had been swift, those times, to chastise the unfortunate fledgling... but then had delivered equally swift vengeance upon the humans responsible.

"It is possible, yes," Raziel answered aloud, now that there were no mortal ears nearby to hear. He was pleased at Rahab's facility with the vampiric mindspeech that was their birthright, but there was no need for the younger vampire to exhaust himself unnecessarily with its constant use. "It would require time, and careful observation, as well as patience." At least if they wished to discover the mortal's identity without cutting a bloody swathe through his underlings. The markers of their ascension into vampiric unlife-the golden-slitted eyes and pallid skin, the fangs, the claw-tipped fingers-also ensured that more subtle interrogations would be impossible to achieve.

Raziel tilted his head, considering his brother. "Do you wish to hunt for the thief's master, if he indeed exists?" It was an interesting idea, if one that would require a great deal more consideration before they might pursue it. For the moment, however, Raziel was simply interested in understanding what stratagems the fledgling might have in mind, and why.

Rahab gaped. He glanced up before speaking, found that the child at the window had fled as well - another detail he'd not noticed in the heat of the moment, but should have. "Hunt for? Uhm." He frowned, trying to make sense of the social order Raziel described. "If there is one... will he not come to us straightaway? When one of us is outmatched, Kain's attention oft befalls those we failed to slay. So when these sneak thieves come whinging back to their Lord..." but then, was a broken wrist cause enough to seek vengeance against the two vampires? Maybe it was, for humans. How would this master track them, with so many other scents and footprints to confuse the vampires' trail? Perhaps he and Raziel *should* seek the man out first, in order that their battle might be on more favorable terms...

Hrm. Rahab's assumptions were inaccurate, but not completely unwarranted, given his limited experience. It was true that if they posed a threat to the local thief-lord, he would undoubtedly seek to hunt down and eliminate that threat. However …

"Think upon the situation for a moment," Raziel replied evenly. "Should the thief decide to importune his master with tales of his failure, what will he say? That he was seized in the midst of a theft by a merchant, or perhaps a nobleman, or perhaps a guard. And that instead of being summarily killed, or given over to the Watch, the man instead did him injury whilst retrieving his property. Think upon the thief-master's position. Even if he were inclined to seek vengeance for the crippling of his vassal, how is he to find this unknown person in a city full of humans? And should he, by chance or by skill, find the man responsible, what then? Does he then risk his position and his own wealth, all in order to take vengeance upon a nobleman who wields far more influence than he? All for the sake of one insignificant thief?" He paused, letting Rahab absorb the information.

"Kain kills those that we do not for many reasons, not the least of which is to protect the secret of our existence. We are only five, in a world full of mortals." Raziel waved a hand at the busy street before them in illustration. "Five, Rahab. Our strength will avail us little if we allow them to swarm us like devourer ants. But the humans-they do not have that concern. To the thief-master, a thief such as this one is only something to be used-and something easily replaced."

Oh. Rahab was silent a moment, letting those words sink in, turning them over. Most mortals, then, were not at all like Rahab or his brethren - not even in their intensity of regard for one another. What a gift it was, to have been elevated above these disposable multitudes, to be utterly unique in all the world!

And yet, he saw too how precarious this position could be. One betraying move, and all these wretches would fall upon the 'monsters' in their midst. "Then, so long as mortals are numbered like grains of sand, we must become as numerous as the stars," he mused, following Raziel's gesture at the passing crowd, and rapidly re-evaluating the wisdom of Kain's present purpose. "And until then... we must take care always to be clever, watchful, and patient." He looked to Raziel, trying to decide if he was reaching the right conclusions. If Kain continued to raise fledglings... it would be a long time before they were twenty, let alone twenty thousand. Rahab's brow furrowed. "Are we to raise fledglings?"

"Perhaps. If Kain wills it." The thought had occurred to Raziel before; but Kain had shown no signs of teaching any of his progeny the secret of passing on his dark gift, and so he had set the idea aside. Perhaps in time, when they had better proven their worth ….

"Enough-let us move on. I do not intend to spend the entire day moldering within this festering alley," he told Rahab, discarding his idle musings for more immediate action. Tugging the cloak firmly about his shoulders, he headed out into the busy street, striding with his customary assurance and trusting Rahab to follow. They would not continue on the main thoroughfare long; the possibility of a chance bump or stranger's hail revealing them was far too great. But if a vampire must walk amongst humans, he had found, it was best to act as if he had every right to do so, moving with the ebb and flow of the people about them.

It was truly difficult to ignore the temptation posed by the potent scents about them-spices and perfumes, sweat and baked goods, and wafting through it all, the sweet iron tang of living human blood. Raziel kept a watchful eye upon the younger vampire as they made their way towards another, narrower street that led towards the wharves; Rahab was not nearly so foolish or impetuous as Dumah, nor quite as young as Zephon, but he was a fledgling still, and instinct was often a difficult thing to master.

Rahab swallowed hard, eyeing the river of humanity. But Raziel never hesitated, and the younger vampire tugged his own cloak closer and hurried to catch up. It was like plunging into a whirlpool - such sounds and such sights! Southern traders clothed in layers of gauzy silks, heavy aromatic oils, cages of birds sporting colors Rahab had never seen in nature, the faintly sickening scent of cooking meat and smoldering spices, a matron carrying a yapping terrier... and so much more, all in the first few steps. Desperate, Rahab fixed his attention and his gaze squarely on the center of Raziel's back, determined to concentrate on nothing but following in his brother's footsteps.

A warhorse screamed its panic, catching the dry scent of undead. The man holding its corded bridle cursed viciously, dragging the animal's head back down, though it took his full weight to do so. "Blast your whore of a mother to the seventh generation, boy-" A heavy hand descended to Rahab's shoulder, even as he belatedly attempted to scramble away. Unthinking, Rahab looked up, his hood falling back, fully exposing his features.

But the horseman merely blinked as if startled, then frowned. "-out of the way!" and propelled Rahab roughly from his path. Trembling with anger and more fright than he cared to admit, Rahab raced to catch up with his brother, drawing his hood up more carefully, and this time making sure to take note of his immediate surroundings as well.

The minor altercation had not escaped Raziel's attention-but he had chosen to do nothing, gambling that Rahab would escape without notice. He had not been entirely correct in that last assumption; the younger vampire *had* been noticed, but the paleness of his complexion as well as the lapis blue of his eyes were apparently still close enough to human to pass. Still, he made sure to keep the periphery of his sight upon the horseman, alert for any other signs of alarm, until the man and his beast were swallowed up by the crowd.

Finally they reached the side street Raziel had been aiming for; a dark and winding offshoot, overhung with patched and flapping laundry and sandwiched in between two soot-stained shops-a blacksmith and a bootmaker, if their crude signs were to be believed. "You were wise to keep your composure back there," he said quietly to Rahab as he stepped over a pair of bodies huddled together underneath the corner's overhang. No doubt either unconscious or dead; either way, it was no concern of his. "You did well."

Rahab nodded faintly, releasing a slow breath. In years past, he'd most likely have responded to the mortal's touch and attention with instinctive violence, but now... was this wisdom? Perhaps so. He picked his way over the bodies, bent briefly to examine them, and found they had but one heartbeat between the two. One dead, one alive... Rahab glanced up, found that the crowd of the broad street was still close and visible, and accordingly left the bodies behind to hurry after Raziel.

The swinging laundry overhead cast a network of flickering shadows, a cool and welcoming respite from the morning's light. The stone and wooden walls were coated with decades of soot, and the slightest brush against them marked clothing or hand. "I have never seen so many humans pressed in together so," Rahab said, as they turned a corner, and the sound of the marketplace avenue diminished.

"Tis a warren indeed," Raziel agreed. Their progress was swift, now that were fewer bodies to impede them, and he picked his way over cracked and uneven cobblestones with the assurance of a nocturnal creature. A huddle of rag-pickers stared at the cloaked forms as they passed, but offered no challenge; it was obvious they posed no threat to the humans' meager gleanings. "Freeport has been a trade and fisher port for centuries, and so the city itself is old-but not all parts of it are equally so. Cities burn, they are taken in war, or abandoned in plague, only to be rebuilt, old stones scavenged for new structures built upon the remnants of those fallen. Human cities such as these oft lie upon a bed of corpses; if one were to dig deep, they would find layers of brick and mortar, and even deeper, the carved stone of ancient shrines and catacombs-all long forgotten by those that live here now." He glanced sidelong at the younger vampire. "Immortality-and a good memory-can oft turn such things to our benefit."

They made another turn, and a gap between the tall buildings allowed the wind to whistle through, bringing with it the scent of the sea: salt and rotting seaweed, fish and tar.

Rahab watched their squalid surroundings with more interest, and more appreciation, thinking on the curiosities and knowledge that must be buried beneath their feet. Just as Raziel had implied, here were places where inferno-baked brick was used as the foundation of newer structures; there, spots where the dirt-and-cobble path dipped and rose over strange ridges, half-buried, like old walls. The two vampires passed through a tunnel, an arched thing of marble engraved in places with a language Rahab did not know, an oddly fine strip of architecture yawning derelict in a wasteland of lesser construction. So engrossed was he that Rahab did not think to draw breath for many minutes, and when he did, the smell startled him.

The younger vampire peered about, looking for the source of the salt and humidity. "Are... we near tanneries?" he asked, though even as he spoke, he knew that couldn't be right. There was little of the uric taint that usually fouled the air about such complexes.

"Tanneries? No," Raziel said distractedly as he paused at the intersection of two roads and an alley, attempting to remember which of the options before them was the route he remembered from a decade before. Several of the buildings had changed, and the more ephemeral landmarks had vanished entirely. But given the direction they had come, the shoreline should lie to the south and west … ah. The street itself had changed its course, no doubt when the buildings had been rebuilt, either due to disaster or some nobleman's edict.

Marking the change in his memory, he set off down the new street, following the scent of the sea as it grew stronger. "We approach the docks," he told Rahab. "There are many opportunities there for a patient hunter; and a secret place that has sheltered Kain and myself in the past." He only hoped that the smugglers' caves were not currently in use; the entrance was well-hidden, and had been lost for centuries, but it was not impossible that it could have been rediscovered by some movement of the earth or other mischance.

Another turning, and they were there-the warehouses to either side abruptly giving way to open air and the sea. A small forest of ships, from the great masted schooners bobbing at anchor to the tiny swift boats that ferried news and supplies, all bobbed upon the waves, their timbers creaking and groaning. Gulls hung effortlessly in the air, adding their raucous cries to the din of the docks below: the clangor of steel, the lowing of livestock providing counterpoint to the bellowings of sailors and merchants and fisherfolk. Before them was a dizzying multitude of activity, far greater than the boulevard they had crossed before, all punctuated by shouts of anger and happiness, of deals being struck and a thousand meetings and partings.

And beyond it, the ocean-glittering, vast … and every bit as deadly to a vampire as a sea of fire.

'Docks,' to Rahab's mind, meant those bustling ramps along rivers, where raw skins, timber, and furs were sent downstream in payment for salt and spices and cotton thread, all poled laboriously upriver. This... this was not the same, was like nothing Rahab had imagined. Fish - not in lines or heaps but rather piled into entire hillsides of gleaming, slippery bodies, were being unloaded and processed. But beyond them, beyond the goats and the geese and the mortals and the outsized rafts... was nothing but blue.

It was as if the summer sky itself had been inverted and splayed out across the ground, though rather than being lit by a single sun, it shone forth with the light of a thousand, thousand stars - flickering, vanishing, everywhere and forever, world without end. Clouds scudded its distant plane, and there was no hint of a further shore. It did not roll slowly, in the way of a river, but instead seemed to pulse: drawing back, seeming to draw breath, and then pressing forward in foaming battle-lines.

Rahab's own breath departed him in a quiet sigh, and he stepped out past his brother, vying for a better view. He could smell water, humidity - but also salts and a thickness reminiscent of blood. _Is it glass? Or... stuff of alchemy?_ he Whispered, reluctant to speak lest the act interrupt the slow sucking tempo of saltwater over rock, ancient and corroding, the cradle of life itself.

Indulging the younger vampire, Raziel replied, _It is all water, Rahab. Brackish stuff that even humans cannot drink, but water nonetheless. Freeport lies upon the edge of the southern ocean, which extends even to the very edges of the world._ Tilting his head, he added a cautionary warning. _Do not let its strangeness cozen you, Rahab. This water is every bit as dangerous to us as any other._ He would not have dared bring Rahab to the wharves, had the vampire been any younger; but now, at least, he hoped that could trust Rahab to heed his warnings.

After allowing his brother a few moments in which to take in the scene before him, Raziel turned, heading towards the northern edge of the wharves. "This way, Rahab." For the most part, they stayed well ashore, far from those dangerous waves. Their route also took them through the shadows thrown by the massive storehouses and other great buildings that lined the waterfront, which provided them welcome shelter from the strengthening sun. They passed an area dedicated to shipbuilding, humans banging away and scurrying up and down scaffolding; all of it bracketing great curved timbers, an unfinished creation that resembled nothing so much as the skeleton of some great sea-creature.

Ocean... Rahab had read the word before, hadn't really understood it. How could he have ever imagined something like this? There must be fish in it, and also plants - if those green and black tangled mats of stuff that resembled rope, bubbles, and scrolls by turns could be called such. But his gaze fell upon things far stranger: smooth-skinned gray fishes with flat tails and blood that smelled something like an otter's and something like a man's; great bulbous black things with maws half the size of their bodies; long-coiled mounds of whipcord flesh armored with scales like dinner plates; all manner of oddities drawn up from the heart of the sea. Rahab trailed along behind his brother, scarcely watching his step in his entrancement.

The next line of ships they passed were being built or torn down, and Rahab watched workmen balance themselves effortlessly upon scaffolding that quivered with each wave. Other ships were being assembled on shore, in cradles made of yet more timber. A motion caught his eye, and there, in the water... two men splashed their way toward a light, half-finished vessel, newly lowered to the water. As always, watching the swimmers raised in Rahab a kind of blind jealousy, such as men might feel when they contemplate birds in effortless flight.

Ahead, the land grew rockier in a long, jagged spit; the taverns, flophouses, brothels, and warehouses grew smaller and poorer where they clustered on the shore, eventually vanishing altogether where the rock thrust up like a basilisk's teeth. Rowboats vied for space at battered docks, ferrying cargo to and from great, four-masted schooners which anchored in the bay. Some of the smallboats carried lean men with a desperate gleam in their eyes, who stumbled with rolling gaits as they stepped onto land but nevertheless made their way eagerly up into the city. Returning to their ships, the rowboats carried tight-packed clusters of men, women, and children - some dressed as middle merchants, some as paupers, but all weighted down with trunks and haversacks.

The activity offered a wealth of possibilities for two vampires, even in daylight. Even a fledgling, were he clever and careful enough, could snatch a sailor or some other wharf-rat in order to sate his hunger. And given the press gangs, thievery, and other dangers that lurked for sailors eager to spend their brief liberty upon shore in drunken debauchery, it was almost expected for a few men to disappear from time to time-whether of their own volition or otherwise.

Ducking behind a low, ramshackle building adorned with nets and strange, hooked fishing implements, Raziel watched the ebb and flow of activity, marking the ships that seemed to be readying for departure, and those that seemed newly arrived. There was one, in particular-an unprepossessing bark, its timbers laden with barnacles and green slime, its sails ragged and worn. Its crew had wasted no time in escaping to shore, but there were a few sailors that had remained-and now they were engaging in a quiet bit of enterprise, hauling small crates to shore with a furtive air and secreting them in a rocky hollow some distance from even the shabbiest of piers.

Raziel squinted into the sky, and grimaced. It would soon be sun-high; not an ideal proposition for stalking human prey. Still … he glanced at Rahab. "What do you think? Shall we do a bit of hunting?" Raziel was still well-fed from his earlier repast; but a fledgling's hunger was endless, as he well knew.

"Wha -" Rahab had followed his brother closely, but without a great deal of attention. His eyes had begun to tear from the brightness, from the sunlight reflected across the water - so much water! - but with every step, there were half a hundred new things to look upon out across the bay. But that last word captured his focus most neatly. Rahab blinked pinkish fluid from his eyes. "Hunting?"

The younger vampire stepped back into the shadows alongside Raziel, watching as a reeling man stumbled by, his weight draped between a pair of common tarts. "Yes," he said definitively, unaware that Raziel's question had been a rhetorical one. This alley, more alcove than pathway, dead-ended against a towering ridge of pitted black rock. The overhanging patchwork roof of the conjoined assembly of shacks provided a fair degree of shade. But not, he thought, enough to conceal any noisy taking of prey. On the other hand, perhaps he was wrong. Rahab leaned out from their concealment, glanced over their surroundings. "Can we feed here?" he asked, noticing a flurry of activity, apparently relating to the approach of one of the dockmaster's attendants, to judge by the book he carried and the guards around him. When Rahab looked back to the humans nearest, something was missing. It took a moment for him to determine what - a small stack of crates piled along the jagged shore, there but moments before, had vanished. But to where? There was nothing for a quarter-furlong, save for more steep slopes of that dark, pocked stone... and the hypnotic pulse of water, slow as a giant's heartbeat.

"Not here, no," Raziel said, watching the official's approach. He had noticed the vanished crates as well-and a dark, anticipatory smile ghosted over his lips. "This way …."

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Full story (very, very NC-17!) available here: archive of our own . org /works/180073/chapters/264780 (no spaces)


	2. Chapter 2

Stepping backwards, Raziel moved deeper into the shadows, towards where the rough-hewn stone walls of the building butted up against the jagged cliffs. The stone was black, grainy to touch and weathered down to a sheer face that offered few handholds, assuming that they were desperate enough to try to climb. But it was not the sky to which Raziel was looking. Instead he picked through the jumble of detritus, muttering a little as he poked through hopelessly tangled netting, seaweed, and other trash thrown up by the sea, all layered over a jumble of piled boulders.

"...ah. Here it is," he murmured to Rahab in satisfaction. Setting pale fingers underneath a particular boulder, he crouched, lifted-and rolled it aside to reveal a hollow bored through the stone, down into the dark. "The sand warrens," Raziel said by way of explanation, setting back upon his heels as he scented the air. "Underneath these cliffs are tunnels worn away by the sea. They are used by smugglers, at times-though none know of *this* particular entrance."

Rahab trailed behind, watching with avid intent his elder's search. Even still, he could not spot the concealed entrance, until Raziel worked his fingers beneath the cover stone and shifted it away. The rock was heavy, perhaps even beyond Rahab's strength, crushing discarded bones and sea-wrack bulbs alike beneath its weight. A trickle of loosened sand drifted down into the revealed borehole. Little wider than a man's shoulders, the tunnel snaked into the stone at a slightly-downward angle, and beyond the first few feet it was impossible to make out any details - nothing but black void against black pitted stone.

Tight and labyrinthine passages, steeped in darkness, from which no screams could escape... young though he was, Rahab could see for himself the eminent suitability of this place. Fascinating too that the sea, as well as harboring deep secrets, could carve tunnels! Controlling his eagerness as best he could, Rahab cast one last look back out into the street. Finding no observers, he took the point, entering headfirst, that claws and fangs might be brought more swiftly to bear, if needed.

Behind him, there was a muted scraping of Raziel's boots and he too climbed in, then the heavy slide of the cover stone, and then darkness descended, utter and enveloping, a Stygian cradle that soothed the senses. The spread of Rahab's palms on the worn floor, the echo of quiet sounds, told him all he needed to know - slope and pitch, the rough places ahead, the shape of the chamber around him. Small creatures of the sand skittered before him, their simple nervous systems sensing power in the air, and urging them flee. A few more lengths, and Rahab's fingertips met a lip of stone, beyond which was nothing at all, and the young vampire risked summoning the smallest of lights, a pale greenish glow that would be near unnoticeable to even night-adapted human eyes. Even if spotted, the patch on the wall of the tunnel might be mistaken for some natural phosphorescence of lichen.

To Rahab, the illumination lit the whole of the chamber quite well. The crawl-space from which he emerged was some eight feet off the floor, partially concealed by a fin of stone. As if a great worm had gnawed through the rock, an unnaturally smooth tube-like cavern extended left and right, stretching far beyond the reach of the light. Here, some chance of geology had broadened that passage, making a sand-bottomed cove of sorts. Scraps of lumber and rope were piled haphazardly on the ground. Crystals of salt, some thick as a man's wrist, clustered on exposed surfaces. Distant dripping, measured and regular as the action of waves, echoed.

Rahab climbed to the sand, clearing the way for Raziel. He lifted his head, tasting the scents of this place: warped rock and old heat, salt-rotted wood and leather, rust, the burning pitch of torches... and everywhere, water.

Raziel soon followed suit, dropping lithely to the sandy floor of the cove. What would have been pitch black to human eyes was as clear as twilight to a vampire's gaze, aided by Rahab's magelight. Tiny scurrying sea-creatures skittered away from the sudden intrusion into their lightless world, burrowing deep into the sand or scrabbling away over rock as their natures dictated.

i_This way,_/i Raziel Whispered, turning right, confidently choosing one of the rocky passages, even though there seemed little to distinguish one from the other. i_Silence is our ally in this place. Sound echoes oddly within these caverns, and in places where even a human might be able to hear._/i Suiting action to words, he moved deeper into the dark with a loose-limbed and stealthy steps, setting his feet precisely upon the uneven stone. As they went deeper, the tunnel gradually grew even more damp, the stone about them redolent of the sea and the scent of the deep earth. i_We are not the only creatures to use these warrens-no doubt the smugglers we saw earlier have found themselves a bolthole closer to the light. But none but we enter this way-humans are afraid to come this deep. And for good reason …_/i He stopped short, a hand hard upon Rahab's arm as he nodded at a deeper shadow than the rest. A flicker of magelight was all that it took to reveal a fathomless inky pit, dropping away from where they stood with shocking abruptness. Haven the sand warrens might well be, but they were not without their dangers.

Rahab sucked in a breath sharply as a shallow depression, a mere shadow amongst shadows, was revealed to be far, far deeper. Wide enough to swallow three men, the edges worn smooth by the passage of water and eons, the hollow snaked its way beyond any reach of light or vision. Rahab had not yet developed the ability to modulate his descent in freefall, but even if he had, the skill might do him little good were he swallowed by this void... for distantly, distantly... the hollow lap and pulse of waves echoed up through the darkness.

Rahab withdrew slowly from his precarious footing, edged with his elder around the wider rim, ducking the salt-frosted spears of mineral stone that depended from the uneven ceiling. He paused on the other side, looked back - the fading patches of magelight he'd left periodically on the stone walls were like breadcrumbs, trailing behind, marking the way with islands in the blackness. i_I see,_/i he replied, awed and tantalized by turns. So many traps into which the unwary might be led, so many nooks and hidden places...

Alert, he followed Raziel over a jumble of fallen stone, keenly aware of each quiet click of rubble upon rubble under his feet. Raziel bore right at the next intersection, and the passage twisted sharply, spooling its way through several turns, opening at last into a chamber that glittered like a treasurehouse, choked with pillars of cloudy salt as tall as a man, a thousand crystalline points bristling like swords, catching and refracting whatever glimmer of light fell upon them. Deep brackish pools, severed from their parent ocean for centuries, harbored life stranger than any Rahab had yet seen - scuttling and gauze-finned things, blind and pale. But his elder picked his way confidently through them all, and Rahab followed, much though he wished to hesitate at the sight of each new wonder. Another turn, and the scent of torches and tar and the sea grew stronger; the salt on the walls was muddied with flecks of char.

Raziel slowed, though not because of any uncertainty as to their location. It had been decades since he'd last visited this place, but stone changed but slowly, not as swiftly or unexpectedly as human habitations did. What had slowed his approach, in fact, was the distant sound of voices in the dark. Human voices, hushed yet still echoing oddly off water and stone. Moving with the stealthy care of a predator, he moved along one wall of the tunnel, using the deepest of the shadows to cloak his approach as the darkness fell back before the fitful light of torches that illumined the walls of the chamber before them.

"-I tol' ya, Erik, we shoulda waited. Iffn we'd waited, we coulda gone ashore, had us some grog, mebbe even a woman. But you had ta move the damned crates, and now we're stuck here! Can't do nuthin but sit in th' cold and damp, 'til the poxy dock inspector takes himself off."

"Aw, shut it," snarled another voice, lower and rougher than the first. "You've never stopped at one drink in yer entire pox-ridden life, Squint. Do you *want* the Captain to catch us? That would be somethin', awright-no cargo, no coin, and a flogging to boot."

"You weren't inna hurry cause of the Captain. You just were getting antsy, an' now we're paying for it," the first voice grumbled. A few muttered imprecations were lost in the echoing stone, even as Raziel slid forward, towards a massive boulder, cleft nearly in twain, that separated the tunnel from the cavern beyond. From such a vantage point, both he and Rahab could see the hapless smugglers; one sitting, the other standing, pacing to and fro upon the pebbled cavern floor. Both were clad in the rough garb of sailors, stained and roughly woven, adorned with a multitude of patches, and had the swarthy skin and tight-curled hair characteristic of the southern lands, the older man's face seamed with scars and adorned with a luxuriant beard. Focused as they were upon the dim light of the cave's entrance, and blinded further by the torchlight, the arrival of Raziel and Rahab did not attract any outcry from either of the waiting smugglers. The vampires were, in effect, invisible-at least for the moment.

After the stygian caverns, the ragged and narrow gape of sunlight was abrupt as a wound. The entrance was a gouge, accessed by a rude rampway of planks and trash, and just wide enough for a single man to squeeze through. While the opening was above the line of high tide, seawater surely entered occasionally, for there were shallow puddles in depressions in the stone, and further back, deeper pools. The smugglers had dragged their goods further up, to dryer venues, and were backlit quite nicely by the noonday light. Even still, the glare was not enough for their weak eyes; both men bore rag-wrapped torches. Squint swung his back and forth as he paced, liking the hiss as it flared. "We done this, wot, six times now? Everyone gets his cut, nuthin goes wrong, you sed it. How many times you sed it? Too many, that's how. And now sumthin goes wrong, all sudden like. So's I can't get my grog, mebbe not today at all. I don't like it."

"The thing I don't like none," snarled the second sailor, "is your flapping tongue, Squint. 'An he hears you caterwauling in here like a whore with the split-rot, someone might take it upon hisself to come find out why." His torch was wedged beside him, between two stones, leaving his hands free for the saber sheathed at his belt. He sat atop a pair of the small, stacked crates they were moving - the boxes were solidly built, and sealed along each slat with wax, proof against the slow seep of dampness.

Squint sneered, but lowered his voice. He wore only a long dagger, the kind useful about a ship for eating or cutting or prying, but even still, he reached to touch its hilt for reassurance. "Ain't nobody gonna hear us here," he said, torch swishing in agitation. "An iffin he does, he'll be feeding the fishes."

In the approach, focused upon his prey - and singled out like this, they *were* prey, even as similar mortals in a crowd had not been - Rahab was nearly as stealthy as his elder, his grace instinctive. At Raziel's silent gesture, Rahab maintained his course close to the wall while his elder stepped out, circling.

While the elder sailor was likely to put up more of a struggle, Raziel decided the younger was likely to be more dangerous-or at the very least, more likely to use the torch he had in hand against any hapless fledgling vampires. Rahab had little to fear from a sword or dagger, barring an unlucky impalement-but fire was far more deadly, and a fledgling's instinct to flee when confronted by it could be difficult to overcome.

"I do not think it will be the fishes that will be feasting this day," Raziel said with dark humor, drawing both humans' eyes to him even as he stepped into the torchlight. For the barest instant, he stood revealed-a creature as ghost-pale as any cave-fish, inhuman golden eyes glittering in the torchlight. The smugglers gawked, caught by surprise, the elder half-rising from his seat-and then Raziel *moved*, closing the distance between them with preternatural speed.

"Whut-?" Confronted by a demon-creature out of the dark, Squint managed only a single abortive cry before it was upon him. Black-clawed fingers closed upon the torch in his hand, twisting it away with shocking ease and tossing it into a nearby tide-pool. Shadows closed in as he scrambled to free himself, fingers fumbling upon the hilt of his dagger. "Erik! Help me!" His cry went unanswered as steely fingers dug into his flesh, claws closing about his throat.

Rahab was undistracted by his brother's theatrics, which most usefully and thoroughly drew

the mortals' startled attention. Time seemed to flow through syrup, each moment stretching, each sensation heightening. He could hear both mortals' heartbeats, the bellows rush of their angry breaths, could scent the sudden salt tang of sweat. The hunt was a pleasure, a drug, an imperative. Each step was silent, every muscle taut with coiled violence. Rahab watched his prey twist, grasping for the hilt of his blade and exposing the length of his flank, weight shifting as the man rose...

Rahab's leap caught the mortal off-balance, a fist staving in the pirate's unarmored ribs like twigs, the force of the spring tumbling them both, grappling, to the sand. Rahab went for the man's throat, confident that shock and pain would make the man weak - and snarled furiously as the mortal slammed an elbow into his jaw, snapping his head back in a way that might have broken his spine, were his bones still mortal-fragile.

Enraged, Rahab tightened his grip on the bigger man's arm, wrenching, and felt the joint of the shoulder dislocate. The satisfaction of that click-tearing sensation, the sailor's ragged cry, was short-lived as the man twisted under him. A stunning point of fire blossomed at Rahab's temple, the glancing impact of a piece of coral stone, and then they were somehow reversed, he flipped to his back, the mortal clubbing down, one-handed, with the hunk of jagged rock.

"Erik! Err-kkk!" Squint's desperate cries were cut off, along with his air. Gagging, he flailed ineffectively for a moment, his nails scrabbling against hands so strong they felt sculpted of cold marble. He kicked out frantically - in vain, as he was lifted from the ground by that terrible grip at his throat, his assailant's strength inhuman. One hand clawing at that steely arm, Squint tried again for the dagger at his belt. His fingers jerked numbly at the hilt - and then the entire sheath came loose, the blade not yet clear of it. Frightened beyond thought, Squint slashed at his attacker's eyes with the leather-encased blade.

Raziel jerked his head back as the rough leather of the scabbard scraped across his cheek and brow, snarling in annoyance. His prey's flailings could do nothing to injure him-but as that dagger finished its arc, the scabbard slipped free of the curved blade. His face mottled as he fought frantically for air, the human stabbed blindly downward, desperate to free himself. The strike was ill-aimed, yet still scored pale flesh, bloodscent intermingled with terror perfuming the air.

Growling under his breath, Raziel caught the man's wrist before he could stab downward yet again, twisting brutally. Bone snapped under his grip, and his prey gave a despairing, breathy cry as the dagger dropped from his spasming fingers. Raziel took a moment to eye Rahab, who still struggled with his own chosen prey-but chose not to intervene. The younger vampire was in no mortal danger, and subduing such a skilled brawler without assistance was a useful lesson indeed. Instead he bent his head, savoring the frantic thump of the sailor's heart and the hot bloodsmell that pumped beneath the begrimed skin-then bit down, cutting deep as he went for the kill.

The younger of the pirates continued to struggle for a moment longer, but asphyxiation left him on the verge of consciousness. The pain of the sudden tearing bite was sharp counterpoint to his broken wrist, but after a few swallows, both began to recede, attenuating. Gradually he went lax, unresisting.

Rahab's own prey landed two more clubbing blows before he managed to strike one of his own, rocking Erik back, stunning him a moment. The vampire lunged up with a vicious snarl, stronger than the mortal despite his size. One palm shoving the sailor's head back, Rahab locked fangs in the exposed throat, wrenching a gory mouthful free. Blood splashed across his face and chest before he could shove the man over and seal his mouth over the gaping wound.

Salt, and the richness of health and sun, the complexity and mouthfeel of the abundant seafood the man consumed, slightly sweet and enthrallingly salty... lacking in some respects, perhaps, but a delicious alternative to the vitae of slum-dwellers. Rahab gulped rapidly, knowing the man would bleed out far too fast, relishing every swallow. His own skin itched intensely as his scrapes closed over with visible speed, the cartilage in his nose clicking audibly as tiny muscles began to draw it back into proper place.

Raziel drank deep, relishing the pumping life of the blood as it spread over his tongue, burning down his throat to coil in his stomach. There was no way to preserve any of it for later-he had no way of transporting his prey back to the slums where the rest of his brethren waited without attracting notice, and leaving either of the sailors alive, even bound, was a risk he was not prepared to take. The man's struggles slacked, weakening as that frantic heartbeat slowed-until finally he hung limp, his skin ashen. Satiated, Raziel lifted his head, letting the sailor's cooling body drop to the cavern floor, smearing the back of one pale hand across bloodstained lips. Rahab had subdued his chosen prey, he noted with satisfaction, though the kill was more messy than he would have liked. Cleaning up his younger brother enough to make their way through busy daylight streets would be challenging, to say the least.

Few blisses were so intense as this, as gulping freely of heartsblood, like drinking from the very pulse of the world, drawing Rahab into a red animal space that felt outside himself, outside time or thought. But like all unalloyed pleasures it was over far too quickly, the flow easing to a seep, to a trickle. Rahab lifted his head from the wound, leaned back to survey his kill - perhaps there was another artery he could open - and surprised himself by sneezing. Rather messily, given the extent to which his face was covered in gore. He wrinkled his nose, trying to determine if it was still broken. Difficult to be sure, but he did catch sight of his elder brother's leveled gaze.

Hissing brief, greedy anger, Rahab bent to cover his prey from view, ducking to lick and worry at the wound he'd carved.

Raziel suppressed a sigh and went to sit upon the sandy cave floor, after taking care of a minor bit of housekeeping-dragging the remains of his meal into the deeper shadows, out of the sight of any casual observer. Precocious Rahab might be for a fledgling, but a fledgling he still was. Raziel did not feel inclined to interrupt the younger vampire's feeding before Rahab had been satisfied; not when there was no need to either enforce his brother's obedience or wrest his own share of the kill away from those greedy fingers. No, better to let Rahab savor his meal in peace; such chances were vanishingly rare, especially when Rahab had his other brothers to contend with. Once he was done, they would let the sea take both bodies; with the right currents, the monsters of the deep would devour the remains far more thoroughly than a vampire ever could.

It took several inelegant minutes before Rahab came slowly to the conclusion that there was nothing more to be gained from his kill. He sat up at last, vaguely disappointed but pleasantly sated. There was still blood on his lips, and he licked them, tasting it. The fluid was drying, and beginning to lose its vital essence, but most agreeable nevertheless. Rahab swabbed his palm over his face, lapping the red from his fingers, and thereby making of his visage an even more disturbing horror-mask of gore and long white fangs and angel-blue eyes, slitted in enjoyment.

Ineffectual self-grooming complete, Rahab cocked his head a little, idly eyeing the sailor whom Raziel had dispatched. He knew better, by now, than to look upon Raziel as potential prey - that lesson had been thoroughly ingrained, starting just days after his resurrection.

Catching that look, Raziel growled, the warning rumbling from the back of his throat. Precocious Rahab might be, but Raziel's patience with his brother did not extend to allowing him to forget his manners! Only the rawest fledglings were allowed to gnaw upon the corpses of others' prey like scavengers. Such behavior was all one could expect of a new-made vampire-but Rahab was now several years past his resurrection, and could no longer claim a newborn's incapacity for thought.

"We were fortunate," Raziel remarked, the sound of his voice echoing oddly off the stone around them. "Smugglers do not always use these caverns. Their existence is oft forgot for years or decades, before some human stumbles upon an entrance and discovers them anew." He tilted his head, regarding Rahab's blood-spattered state. "And as you have learned, sailors are not nearly so easy to subdue as soft-bellied merchants …."

Rahab blinked, frowned, the haze of fight and feeding clearing from his eyes. He looked to his own hand and, finding it covered in gore, tsked in pique and tried to wipe his palm clean on the sand - only to discover that much of his arm and shirt and face were similarly coated. "Not nearly so easy," Rahab admitted with dismay - he'd fought trained humans before of course, though mainly guardsmen already crippled or disarmed by his elder brothers - and a certain degree of shame as he surveyed his state. How were they to leave the caverns like this, with Rahab anointed liberally in the evidence of his own excesses? It was well he'd not made such a error in front of his Sire - Kain's patience and his tolerance for such youthful exuberances was vanishingly thin.

Fastidiously, Rahab gripped his sailor by the wrist and dragged the corpse over to lay neatly beside Raziel's kill. Then he circled to where Erik's torch still smoked and guttered, wedged firmly between two boulders. Crouching, flinching a little, Rahab reached out to grip the thing carefully as far from the lit end as possible, and doused the offensive flame in the nearest water. That accomplished, the only light came from the thin crack up the wall, a muted blue light reflected from all the many pools and puddles. In that cool glow, Rahab selected a clean space on the dry sand. "How soon need we depart?" he asked quietly, drawing his tunic up over his head and toeing off his sandals. His torso was stippled with short lines of blood - his own, from scrapes he'd received during the course of his fight. The minor wounds were now vanished, leaving only a little vitae to mark the struggle.

Raziel tilted his head, considering. "We have some time-the sun is yet high." His time-sense was imperfectly accurate, especially mewed underground like this; but he still could feel the sun's progress in his bones, his undead flesh yearning for the cool safety of twilight. Their painstaking progress through the caverns had taken some time, but the subsequent ambush and meal had not been lengthy. They could afford to linger.

Ripping an unstained portion of cloth from one of the corpses, he pushed to his feet and proffered it to Rahab. "Here-this may help." Then he turned his attention to the crates that the humans had so diligently guarded, crouching next to the nearest to consider it. Made of rough-hewn wood and sealed with wax, there was little upon the surface to indicate what might lie inside. The faded stampings of a foreign port adorned its surface to declare its origin, but even those might have been faked in order to allow these crates to go unremarked amongst more ordinary cargo.

Raziel sniffed experimentally at the wood, but found it scented only the sea and the reek of months spent in the dank belly of a sailing ship. Finally curiosity got the better of caution; levering sharp-nailed fingers into one corner, Raziel pulled the lid upward, metal studs shrieking in protest, and peered within. He had expected spices, or perhaps some other exotic goods heavily taxed-at most, perhaps a windfall of the addictive white-powdered 'sugar', banned by Freeport authorities and thus worth its weight in gold.

Instead, the crate was full of … vials? Frowning, Raziel reached in, plucking one out to scrutinize it more closely. The vials were full of liquids in a rainbow of gem-like hues-sapphire-blue, dark crimson, some even a virulent and unnatural green that glowed slightly in the darkness. The bottles themselves were embossed with strange symbols he did not recognize, and tightly sealed. Some were even adorned with strange charms made of beads and bone, or their caps threaded through with gold and silver wire in elaborate interlocking shapes. None seemed to be warded against handling, yet Raziel could feel the magic thrumming within those bottles; some inimical and prickling against his skin, others more alluring, as if they welcomed his touch, singing silently of blood and darkness.

Rahab joined him beside the crates. Most activities were of far greater interest than scrubbing soiled clothing in the sand of course, but the treasures his brother had found were nothing short of fascinating. He leaned over to peer at the little vials - most were no longer than a finger, and some not even that wide. Each was nested in one of the holes of an odd, many-pocketed wicker frame, of which there were three stacked in each small crate, and the whole of the assembly was padded in strips of soft fur. A great deal of care and caution had gone into packing the little glass baubles. Even still, one had broken, Rahab saw when his elder lifted the topmost frame out; one pocket contained only broken glass, and the fur there was stained a rusty shade. Raziel drew another wax-sealed vial from its sleeve and this one shed its own light, a pale violet glow that seemed to dance and twist as the potion was moved, casting a strange silvery pattern of shadows and light over Rahab's naked skin.

It made his fingers itch to touch, to explore, to seek and find out... and curiosity was a temptation to which Rahab could offer naught but token resistance. He knew better, however, than to grab blindly at the whole vials - they were his elder's find, and therefore his elder's property, unless Rahab wished to challenge Raziel for them. And that... that would be a very poor idea indeed. Nearly shivering with excitement, Rahab dipped two fingers into the wicker well, and drew out one of the little pieces of broken glass, which he judged of no interest to his brother. His hand tingled where the dry, rust-colored stuff touched his skin. "What... what are they?" Rahab asked, sniffing his prize, trying to place the powdery iron scent. Whatever it was, it was certainly unlike the next one which Raziel drew from its sleeve - that one was white as milk, and some trick of the glass seemed to give it a faint halo in gold that make Rahab want to flinch.

"If I were to guess," Raziel said slowly, scrutinizing the glowing-gold vial held gingerly between thumb and forefinger, as if it might bite, "I would say these are alchemical potions, though what their purposes might be, I could not tell you." Setting down the vial full of white liquid, he plucked another from its fur-lined nest. This one was a dark crimson, vibrant as heart's blood, encased in a vial topped with dark metal scrolled into arcane runes. "Except for this … I have seen Kain use these, upon occasion." They were rare, moreso now than ever, and Raziel had only ever seen his Sire use them in moments of direst need. "It is a blood glyph-a vial of human blood, preserved and made more potent by ancient magic. Even this tiny amount could heal wounds, or provide sustenance to a hungry vampire. I have heard that human physicians may even use them in their surgeries, or to replace what has been lost during a bloodletting." A criminal waste, in his opinion, that such rare and precious items were destined to be wasted upon inbred human nobles or overfed merchants, but such was the way of the world in which they lived.

Pale fingers curling protectively about the vial, Raziel glanced at Rahab. "This is indeed a prize. I know not what other magics might be contained within these bottles, but there are many that might be of use-and all would fetch a high price from any sorcerer or alchemist looking to enhance his spell-workings. We will need to hide these-conceal them deep within the caverns where none but we can find them." The two would-be smugglers might have had confederates, unlikely as that might seem, and Raziel was not about to leave such precious goods where any wharfside scavenger might stumble upon them. They would not be able to move the crates unnoticed until nightfall; until then, they would need to hide them well.

Rahab exhaled in disappointment, but nodded, laying down the broken bit of glass. "As you say, brother." If only he could take the artifacts for himself, could secret them away and study them and discover their properties! The very thought raised a shiver up his spine, an obsessive's compulsive yearning. Each vial that Raziel held up in turn for examination seemed to sing a different siren tone, a hum just beyond the borders of hearing.

For a moment, Rahab contemplated simply taking the objects of his desire, perhaps in a moment of his elder's inattention. But the vials would clink in his beltpouch, and even if he could wrap them well enough, what if Raziel wished to inventory his find?

It was a kind of torment to watch Raziel handle the artifacts. "But... shall we not take some with us? Now? Today?" Rahab asked at last, looking to his brother. In the pale glow of another of the little vials, a stain across the collar of Raziel's dark tunic stood out, and Rahab frowned. There was another scent on the air, Rahab belatedly realized. "...did you take injury?" he asked.

"Mm? It is merely a scratch, nothing more," Raziel replied, dismissing the injury that still remained red and livid-if sealed over-upon his pale skin. He weighed a vial in his hand, considering it-then slanted a knowing glance at the younger vampire. Rahab's motives were transparent to anyone familiar with a fledgling's acquisitive greed, after all; and Raziel, especially, knew his brother well.

"Very well-we shall take a few," he finally conceded after some consideration. "A few blood glyphs may well be needed, and perhaps two or three others for further examination. We shall stay away from those that stink of holy magic, however." It would be folly indeed to allow such dangerous magic within reach of a fledgling vampire's greedy fingers! He slanted a warning glance at Rahab. "Only a few, Rahab. And I would suggest discretion." Only Turel was likely to be foolish enough to try and challenge his elder brother for such prizes; but Rahab was unlikely to be afforded the same consideration by his brethren.

Rahab ducked his head, far too delighted to be properly embarrassed at his evident transparency. The relics would be his! Only a few, to be sure, but that term could be stretched quite far in Rahab's opinion. And the things he would do with them... perhaps he could apply a drop of each vial to a stone or insect or a little blood, and thereby learn something of the artifact's properties. When he again had access to an almebic, such as the one he'd assembled at the manor house, then he could learn even more. For the first time, Rahab dared draw the tip of a finger lightly - ever so lightly! - over the intricate caps of a line of little bottles, reveling in the feel of the different magics playing over his skin. He'd choose... he'd... which ones would he pick?

Rahab withdrew his hand, twisted his fingers in the scrap of flannel torn from the sailor's shirt, knotting and unknotting it anxiously. Later, he would decide later - but just right now... there was something else he wanted. Rahab was well and fully aware of the indulgence his sibling had granted already, of course. Dare he make a further request, and a forward one? But just as the blood on his hands was drying and flaking away, so too was the vitae on Raziel's skin drying, losing its potent vitality, seeping into the weave of Raziel's tunic, wasted. "Then, before we secret the crates, brother... may I clean the wound?"

Putting the blood glyph carefully back within its furred compartment, Raziel glanced over at Rahab, annoyance warring with a certain wry amusement. "Two humans to dine on this day, and you still desire more?" Rahab's appetite, it seemed, was insatiable. Still-the sun was yet high. They had time before they would be able to return safely, and there were none of the others about to squabble and snarl at their elder brother's obvious favoritism.

"Very well," he finally said, rising to seat himself upon another of the crates and beckoning his brother forward. "However, I expect you to mind your manners, Rahab. If I feel fangs in my hide, I will not be well-pleased." Left unspoken was that Raziel's displeasure was likely to be both swift and unpleasant, for if his temper was not quite so capricious as that of their Sire, he had still learned what he knew of discipline at Kain's hand.

Rahab grinned slyly, hurriedly gathering his hair back in a tie. It was bloodied, and his elder would little appreciate being painted with dead vitae in the course of Rahab's greed. "I did not finish the first," he offered by way of explanation, scrubbing his face vigorously with the flannel, "and the second did spill somewhat, after all." Which was all true as far as it went. But even still, Rahab was well-fed, and would remain so for a day or more. No, the prize here was the prospect of tasting *Raziel*, an indulgence which Rahab valued every bit as highly as the opportunity to drink of his Sire.

Kain's blood was overwhelming in its potency, was like being swept under, leaving a fledgling helpless with the rapture. Raziel's was strong, too... but not so much as to obscure the complexities, the currents of power, the layers of taste and sensation and energy. As neatened as he could make himself in a few seconds, Rahab approached as his elder's gesture, sinking to his knees in careful respect. Steadying one mostly-clean hand on Raziel's thigh, he reached to the neckline of his elder's tunic.

Rahab's clever fingers made quick work of the buttons that opened to his brother's breastbone, and Rahab peeled the wet fabric back from the injury with care. The dagger had stabbed straight down just above Raziel's collarbone, slicing the thick muscle there; the wound probably had been nearly a finger in depth. Had the blade pierced a little deeper, it would surely have punctured larger arteries or even one of Raziel's lungs - which was a decidedly uncomfortable injury indeed. As it was, the stab had bled freely before closing. The scent was intoxicating.

Rahab insinuated himself a little closer. "My thanks, Raziel," he murmured, and laid his lips upon the wound, carefully, fangs well-covered.

Raziel did not move as those cool lips touched his skin, staying patiently still under Rahab's ministrations. After a few moments, one hand lifted, black-taloned fingers curling over the join of neck and shoulder in a caress that held both warning and approbation. Suckling carefully at inflamed flesh, the touch of Rahab's pale lips and eager tongue was a subtle benediction, each slow lick sparking a frisson of pleasure over sensitized skin. It was a minor pleasure, to be sure; a precursor, perhaps, to other, more potent diversions. But in this chill and exposed space, with water lapping far too close for any vampire's comfort, such minor attentions were all Raziel could afford to allow.

The wound had bled well before it had closed, which afforded Rahab more sustenance that he might otherwise have found. Raziel could hardly cavil at the opportunity to be so thoroughly cleansed by his brother's devotions; however, always at the back of his mind was the thought of the others, left to their own devices. He had commanded them to remain hidden, yet the longer he was gone, the more opportunity there might be for some mishap or fit of temper. Zephon, especially, needed little excuse to stray, and Dumah was easily provoked into foolishness.

Indulging Rahab for these few moments was harmless enough, but Kain had left all his brethren in his care; and Raziel did not wish to fail in that duty.

Rahab was far too absorbed to much notice Raziel's reaction, taking care to lave every trace of vitae from his brother's skin. The taste was exquisite, richer by far than any mortal's. Sweetness, yes, and a layered complexity of spice, but somehow crisp too, like a distillation of the high mountain breezes, the cold wind before dawn. Every time he was permitted this pleasure, the taste of his brother seemed to grow deeper, more nuanced, bespeaking Raziel's developing power.

When Raziel's chest was thoroughly bathed, Rahab leaned back a little to survey his work. The revealed breadth of the stab was dismaying, even given a vampire's quick recovery from such wounds. Rahab might require a half hour - a very long, very uncomfortable half hour - or more to entirely heal such a wound carved into his own hide. "You should, mnn," Rahab started, then found an untouched smear of blood down Raziel's shoulder, _be more careful, brother. This could have been serious._ Rahab's fingers slipped to the clasp of Raziel's cloak, letting the heavy fabric fall to the sand. As he began to draw his hands up Raziel's sides, tugging his brother's shirt up as if he meant to slip it off, Raziel's grip on the back of his neck tightened a little. _Shall I not scrub the blood from your tunic, and mend this rent, Raziel?_ Rahab whispered, slyly, tongue otherwise occupied.

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This story is a cowrite with HopeofDawn. The naughty chapters are posted to:  
>archive of our own . org works/180073/chapters/264780  
>(remove spaces in address.) major warnings for noncon and kink. The chapters posted here to are safe (except for violence and blood.)<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

This plea, appealing as it was, left Raziel unmoved. "Much as I am grateful for your concern with the state of my clothing," he said dryly, "Yet I think we have lingered here long enough." It would take time to conceal the crates, and more time to make their way back through the labyrinthine caverns and back streets to where their brethren waited. Immortal they might be, but none of them yet were old enough to have developed the kind of unblinking patience that their Sire possessed-and left to their own devices, a fledgling's impatience oft led to disaster.

He allowed Rahab a few moments more to scrub the last traces of blood from his skin; then he pulled the younger vampire away, his grip iron-hard and unyielding. "Enough. We need to conceal these treasures, and rid ourselves of this offal. Then we must head back to the others." He rose, straightening his tunic and swinging the heavy material of his cloak about his shoulders once more.

Rahab stole a last few licks, relishing the very texture of his elder's skin - how Rahab hoped that he too might be gifted the silky-fine underlying striations that toughened his elder brothers' hides! - before being pulled away. Rahab sank back on his heels with a sigh, though the grip at the back of his neck, and the instinctual submission such handling compelled, kept his disappointment from biting too keenly. He was not accustomed to questioning his Sire's whims, anyway, and had for the most part extended that habit to Raziel's.

"As you say, brother," Rahab murmured, rocking effortlessly to his feet once released and stretching luxuriously. His elder's potent vitae was a warm whorl in the pit of Rahab's belly, radiating a most pleasant sense of satiation. "Grant me a moment to make myself presentable for travel? And..." Rahab decided abruptly that he must pick his 'few' vials outside of Raziel's view, if at all possible, "if you wish to choose a hidden place for the treasures, I will weight down the corpses, then aid you in moving the rest of the crates."

Raziel cocked an eyebrow at the younger vampire, experience making him more than a little wary of Rahab's sudden helpfulness. "You forget, brother, this is hardly my first visit to these caves. I already know of a place where they will remain safe until we return for them." Whether that return was in a night or a decade or more mattered little-the cavern of which he spoke was small, but dry and hidden well in a blind turning deep within the tunnels, far above the tide and away from other nesting creatures. Kain had been the one to discover it some years ago, and they had cached other supplies there in the past, stored against future use.

"Clean yourself while I bind and weight the bodies," he ordered, deciding to heed his suspicions and keep Rahab well in hand. "We shall dump them first, then return for the rest." Suiting action to words, he turned away to where the sailors' corpses lay and began the tedious process of binding limbs together with strips of cloth and salt-stiffened lengths of discarded rope. A few stones stuffed within the confines of tunic and trouser-legs, which were then tied closed, sufficed to weight the bodies. The currents around these obsidian cliffs ran swift and deep, and these would not be the first-or the last-bodies that they would devour.

Rahab sighed briefly and quietly, feeling very much thwarted. Not only would he have to wait for his prizes, but the task of disposing of the bodies was to be taken from him, if he did not hurry! His brothers did not even much like dealing with corpses, though Raziel was efficient and uncomplaining at it. Turel seemed to feel the deed beneath him, and Zephon with his extraordinary horror of water tended to botch the job nearly as often as Dumah. Rahab liked it, liked to watch the broken forms sink and attenuate beneath the surface, liked to watch the sharp-toothed fish which gathered for him in eager expectancy.

But they were far from Rahab's favorite spots along the river, here. Rahab set to vigorously scrubbing the dead blood from his skin and hair as rapidly as possible, using handfuls of gritty sand, hoping they'd not be forced to drag the bodies very far in order to commit them to the water. A messy and laborious task that would be.

After a minute, when Rahab was reasonably sure of passing casual inspection, he set himself to gathering stones of just the right size for Raziel's use. The best ones, about fist-sized and dense, but neither so smooth as to slip loose nor so jagged as to tear fabric, lay near the various pools and sinkholes that interrupted the chamber's floor, and Rahab gave these as wide a berth as he could. Most of the pools were mere shallow depressions in the stone. But one, a rough circle of silver water, limpid and dim, heaving faintly with the rhythm of the sea, caught Rahab's eye and gave him pause.

The younger vampire crouched cautiously at the sinkhole's edge. He could not see the bottom. Scooping up a handful of pebbles, Rahab breathed over them, whispering the cantrip to imbue them with a brief glow, then released them into the water. As they sank, the stones illuminated a irregular vertical tunnel, lined with some manner of vegetation the likes of which Rahab had never seen. Spears and fins and stag's horns, in white and lavender and bright orange, studded over with feathery groupings and pastel clumps of spikes, broken by dark and fathomless openings, and just there, a ribbon-twisting shape like an eel but longer than Rahab's entire body, and more, all revealed and then vanished into the deep once more. Enchanted, Rahab imbued more pebbles and dropped them in, this time catching a glimpse of a fish as round and big as a wagon wheel, and nearly that thin. The light failed before the stones reached bottom. "Is this chasm suitable, brother?" Rahab asked, twisting around.

Glancing over his shoulder, Raziel frowned a little at the younger vampire's proximity to the water. Getting scorched would teach the fledgling a good lesson-but falling in would be a deadly one.

"Be careful, Rahab," he said, tying off the last few knots. He rose and moved to the water's edge, laying a cautionary hand upon Rahab's shoulder as he leaned forward to peer down. The spell-lit stones had faded swiftly, leaving only inky, rippling darkness; but the sinkhole seemed wide enough to accommodate a corpse, at least, and subtle eddies of the water's surface seemed to indicate that the water currents within were strong enough to suit their purposes.

"Did you see any jagged outcroppings or other impediments upon the sides?" If the bodies became entangled, there would be nothing the two vampires could do, save leave them to stare upwards at the next unfortunate who might undertake to look down into the pool. It was an unlikely scenario, to be sure, but there was no need to take unnecessary risks.

Rahab leveled a look up at his brother, brow arched. They'd grown in within a year of his raising - Raziel still remembered a time when his sibling bad been bald as an egg - and surely the younger vampire had been practicing in the mirror, for the gesture practically beamed aggrieved indignation. Rahab was *plenty* cautious of the acid sting of water. And his elder behaved as if this were Rahab's first time hiding the bodies. Which it wasn't. Of course he'd looked for ledges and obstructions.

Since he valued his tongue, Rahab did of course refrain from saying so much. Instead he nodded after a moment. "This side seems clear enough," he offered instead, reaching to scoop up another handful of pebbles. Again, he laid over them the tracer spell, and dropped them into the water in demonstration, watching their glittering descent. Some distance down, *something* reached out with a suckered arm as thick as Rahab's wrist and dragged a pebble into one of the dark openings, then just as quickly spat the stone back out. "What was that?" Rahab murmured, as if cautious of disturbing the underwater denizens, his eyes wide.

"I do not know," Raziel replied, a bit startled himself. "I have heard fishermen and sailors speak of the monsters of the deep … some large enough to drag great sailing vessels down to the depths. Perhaps this is something akin to those?" He saw no reason to pretend omniscience in this matter; after all, it was not as if he spent a great deal of time lingering by the shore to catalogue each strange and misshapen creature that might be dragged from the ocean depths.

Tilting his head to glance sidelong at his brother, he continued, "Shall we see if human flesh is more to its taste than your pebbles?" Straightening, he head back over and hefted one of the weighted bodies, handling the clumsy bundle with skill born of long practice. What had once been a sailor now resembled nothing so much as a badly-stuffed scarecrow, with only the man's slack and pallid face and hands still visible. Hauling the body over to the water's edge, he checked to make sure Rahab had moved well clear of any splash-then heaved the body in.

Accustomed to this frequent ritual, Rahab scuttled neatly away from the displaced water, cloak held to cover the his hands and face from stray droplets. He returned to the edge as the splash subsided, enchanting another handful of pebbles and dropping them in with rapt interest. The corpse was ghostly in the brief glow, a stuffed and bulging man-thing, dragged down by the weight of its own limbs, howling silently up at the two killers. Fish and stranger beasts scattered like tea leaves, leaving Rahab with the feeling that their patterns of action and reaction were surely meaningful, if only he could learn to read them.

The body vanished with the light, and Rahab reached for another handful of pebbles... but withdrew his hand at his elder's sharp and prompting sound of impatience. Ducking his head in acknowledgement only slightly shamed - this was far too engrossing an enterprise to feel too badly about letting Raziel do all the work! - Rahab went back for the last body. He could not handle it quite so efficiently as Raziel had done, and had to let the sailor's callused feet drag, but otherwise managed the several-hundredweight form as well as any six mortal men. Using his little dagger, he opened his prey's throat a little more, to make access easier for the consuming things below, and then eased his corpse into the water. A pity he did not have a long stick, with which to stir and poke at the sinking body, as he liked to do. Again, Rahab followed the corpse with some tracer pebbles, and again the fish swirled around the new addition to their world, behaving not much like the saw-toothed river denizens with which Rahab was most familiar, and indeed showing no particular inclination to drag down great sailing vessels nor much of anything else. Rahab's brows drew together as he tried to determine if these fish and the... sucker-arm-thing simply wanted for training. Or perhaps they were defective. He hoped that Raziel would not be much displeased with him, for choosing a suboptimal sinkhole.

Raziel, for his part, did not share Rahab's fascination, and once the body had once again disappeared beneath the inky waters, he turned back to their prizes. "Rahab," he called sharply. "Assist me with these." Given opportunity, the fledgling vampire would play at the water's edge until hunger or some other ephemeral distraction diverted his interest. Raziel had never understood Rahab's fascination with the deadly liquid, and he found his patience wearing thin. They had lingered within these caverns long enough; it was time to return to the others.

Picking up a still-sealed crate, he waited for Rahab to do the same-then moved towards the half-concealed tunnel that they had used to enter the cavern. There was another turning, barely fifty paces in, that they had not used-it would lead upward and around, to the cavern used for Kain's hidden stores.

Rahab jumped to obey with nothing more than a last regretful glance at the pool of seawater and its mysteries, having more than a passing familiarity with his elder's temper and the shades of tone which marked its limits. He quickly but carefully placed the wicker frames of potions back into their parent crate, scooped up the wooden lid, and forced it back on, bent studs biting with a harsh metal sound into the timbers.

Clutching his crate of fragile prizes tight to his chest, Rahab scurried after his brother, his step surefooted in the gloom. It was well that Raziel led the way, for the tunnel he selected was well-hidden, naught but a crack in the shadows between two boulders, and it turned and branched most deviously. At one point, Rahab had to drop to his knees and push the crate before him, low stone protrusions brushing his back. For a time, the younger vampire paused periodically to lay down small, faint-glowing patches by which to light their way, but soon that proved unnecessary, for another mage had been before them. Rahab sensed, vaguely, the spellweave as it was activated by the vampires' presence... but before he could call a warning, every surface around them brightened with a starlight glow, the light clean and balanced and comfortably dim. After the brothers passed through each twisting tunnel, the illumination behind them faded away, and the next segment lit itself.

Even with the better light, it was hard to spot the gap near the ceiling to which Raziel headed. But once Rahab - with some assistance - clambered up the rough wall, he found that the gap opened into a dry, sand-bottomed chamber, large and slightly curved, and lined with treasures that made Rahab gape.

Weapons and armor of rare metals were stacked against more crates which lined the walls. Jewels were spilled like baubles over a blanket on the sand. Tapestries in silk and gold were heaped in rolls. On a makeshift shelf - just a plank between two crates, a series of leather-wrapped squares could be nothing but tomes. The artifacts of a sorcerer's laboratory - great silver bowls, elaborate glassware, heavy-bottomed calcinators - were scattered everywhere. In an alcove were spread furs to which still clung, very faintly, the scents of Raziel, and of blood... and of Kain.

Awed, Rahab placed his own small crate where Raziel indicated. But as Raziel turned with maddening indifference to leave, Rahab bit his lip. "Brother, perhaps one of us should retrieve the last crate and sweep away all evidence of battle, whilst the other chooses a few vials for study later, and segregates the bloodvials," he hurried on at his elder's slanted glance. "It would permit us to return sooner."

Raziel frowned. Rahab's suggestion, while reasonable, also left the his brother to his own devices for a fair amount of time, and Raziel was quite aware of the temptations posed by leaving a fledgling in the midst of Kain's hoard. But at the same time, he was becoming increasingly aware of the passage of time, and found himself strangely impatient to rejoin the others and assure himself of their safety.

Allowing Rahab to pick his way alone through twisting, labyrinthine tunnels was not an option, however; Raziel could all too easily envision the younger vampire becoming disoriented and lost, or taking one step too far in the darkness, only to meet an agonizing watery death. No, twas safer for him to retrieve the last crate, and erase any lingering signs of their presence, while Rahab remained behind.

"Your suggestion has merit," he said grudgingly, giving his brother a nod. "I shall go to retrieve the last of our spoils. Choose a few of the blood glyphs that we might take with us, but do not tamper with anything else left here-our Sire is jealous of his treasures, and many are well-warded against a thieving hand." In truth, Raziel did not know for sure whether Kain had actually gone to such efforts to protect these particular baubles, but it seemed more likely than not-and more importantly, the threat of their Sire's displeasure was one Rahab was likely to respect.

Rahab nodded in understanding, doing his level best to keep his expression cool and unmoved. Once Raziel had departed, however, it was all Rahab could do to keep from hugging himself with delight. He darted to the crates, noting as he did that his footprints smoothed themselves over with unnatural speed, fine sand drifting to fill the depressions. The same subtle magic probably defended the tunnels outside, making the movements of the vampires difficult to track but also meaning that Raziel wouldn't have a very long trail to cover - and that Rahab wouldn't have much time.

He pulled off the top of the previously opened crate and freed the folded woolen batting and then the three fur-lined wicker frames. As before, the beauty and potential of the assembled jewel-like vials made his breath catch. Such wonders! Rahab picked though them with long, clever fingers, finding the bloodvials which Raziel regarded so highly. There were five in this crate, and Rahab set them aside. That done, the only task remaining was to select some of the remaining artifacts for study.

But what a frustrating task! There were several dozen varieties of vials in this crate alone, and each one was a marvel to eyes and magic-sense alike. How was Rahab to choose between warm tiger-lily orange and gleaming prickly violet, or glossy quicksilver and icy blue? Rahab bit at his lip. One pale green vial was etched with alchemical sigils he recognized from one of Kain's books; Rahab set that one aside. One had a fantastically elaborate wire wrapping. Another unlike all the rest was capped very simply, with a pearl sized to fit the vial and sealed in place with wax - and there were no others like it in the crate. It felt electric when he picked it up, as if his very bones tried to flinch away. Tight about all of the vials clung a dense aura of untold enchantments.

A distant clatter of stone alerted him. But seven... seven was too many! Raziel had stipulated two or three. But how could Rahab just... just leave these precious things behind? No, no - hurriedly, the young vampire seized up three of the vials, the ones with the simplest and least bulky tops, and tearing out a bit of woolen padding, wrapped and secreted them away into the hidden pouches of his cape.

He was just closing the crate when Raziel arrived. "Those are the ones I wish to take," Rahab said, gesturing, "and there are all the blood vials I discovered in the first crate. Shall I check the other two?"

Setting his burden down carefully upon the sandy floor, next to the other crates, Raziel shook his head. "No-it will be better to leave them sealed, I think, until the time comes to use what is contained within." One never knew what the future might hold, after all-it might be some time, perhaps even years, before they had opportunity to return.

Glancing over at Rahab's selections, he nodded in approval-the blood glyphs would be useful, and no doubt Kain would find the others of interest as well upon his return, if they had not already been sold or found necessary for some other purpose. Pleased at Rahab's obedience even in his absence, Raziel said graciously, "You may choose one or two more, I think-if all the crates are filled with such as these, then a pair more or less will hardly be missed." Would that all his brethren were so biddable!

He once again wound his cloak about his shoulders, draping the heavy cloth back into its concealing folds as Rahab debated over his treasures. Reaching down, he took up the blood glyphs and wrapped them in a bit of cloth, then secreted them away within a belt-pouch. There was little sense in tempting a fledgling's eternal appetite by leaving them within Rahab's reach. "Choose swiftly," he told his brother. "We must be on our way."

Rahab gaped, uncertain for a moment that he'd heard aright. But as Raziel turned away, attending to his presentation with practiced and casual gesture, Rahab leaped to take advantage of his brother's directive. Two more! Two more of Raziel's glittering mysterious prizes, for studying and experimenting. Perhaps Rahab could learn to make more of these potions, and he let himself imagine that as he peeled the lid of the crate back again. How Kain might praise him, and Raziel would as well! Even Dumah, brute that he was, would see the utility of Rahab's efforts. A veritable multitude of possibilities gleamed in fragile glass vials, and with some deliberation, Rahab settled on his two extra philtres.

Triumphantly, head swimming with plots and plans, Rahab wrapped the vials and pocketed them, squeezing them in next to the pilfered vials. That left... erm. Four more. Thinking rapidly, Rahab dug through the pouches and pockets attached to his belt and sewn into his cloak. He transferred his comb and scraper to another pocket, discarded a fragment of mirror and a bracelet of shiny stones and a half-carved chunk of wood. That made room for three of the vials. The last one, Rahab stuffed into his coin purse, making it bulge in a way certain to attract the attention of every footpad in sight. The elaborate top of the vial didn't even fit entirely within the drawstring, but rather stuck out, robed in a whisp of white woolen batting.

Nine... nine was too many, Rahab realized with a sinking sense of dismay. He should put some back. But then Raziel would notice, would ask questions, would find the stolen ones. Rahab wilted beneath the enormity of his guilty predicament. Moving gingerly lest he clank his overcrowded treasures against something, Rahab replaced the lid of the crate and went to join his impatient elder.

Distracted by his own concerns, Raziel maintained only a casual watch over Rahab's choices, idy noting which of the vials the younger vampire eventually claimed as his own. Once it was done and the crate resealed, he gave his brother a nod and then led the way back into the dark tunnels, winding his surefooted way back to the concealed entrance to the labyrinth. There were no stops this time to gawk or to explain, and they made swift progress, until finally Raziel could push aside the boulder blocking their exit, and they re-emerged into the lighted world.

The shadows had grown long while they had been underground, and the sun was now well past its zenith, the golden afternoon light gilding the edges of the bobbing masts and barnacled hulls of the ships at anchor. The ebb and flow of the human activity along the shoreline had not waned, however, and Raziel chose their path into the dockside warrens with care, keeping well away from both the waterline and the busiest docks.

Rahab followed close at his brother's heels, his belly as comfortably warm and full as was possible for a fledgling and his thoughts adrift with the possibilities ahead, his only care to avoid bumping or jarring his overabundance of treasures. He blinked and glanced about when they passed beyond the influence of Kain's magics, feeling suddenly, irrationally, as if layer of concealment had been peeled back from them, withdrawn. But there was no chance to further consider the impression, as their path wound through tight-packed stalagmites and broken places where Rahab had to tread carefully to avoid leaving footprints in the sand.

And then there was the city, ringing still with the cries of gulls and men. Their route was familliar, following the landmarks Rahab had seen earlier in the day, until they arrived once more at the great marketing street. There, Raziel abruptly stepped aside into the lengthening shadows, reaching out to seize Rahab by the collar when the younger vampire would have blundered ahead.

The avenue was teeming with armed men, shoving through the crowd in tight and disciplined ranks. They shouted orders, 'make way!' and 'clear a path!' but their progress was slow, the crowd parting and closing reluctantly. White tabards over plate or chain marked some of them Sarafan, some Freeport homeguard.

The blacksmith under whose crude awning the vampires stood was speaking to another peasant. "Sampson said an hour ago that something'd hit the Kent freehold. Spread pieces of 'em everywhere. All up in the trees, 'e said."

"Gnolls again, ye think?" asked the smaller man, idly watching the activity. Overhead, a murder of crows took wing from scarred walls and crumbling cornices, their sand-throated cawing a more distant echo of the human commotion.

_Damnation_. Raziel kept his gaze hooded, all too aware of might happen if a Sarafan trooping past caught a glimpse of yellow eyes or deathly-pale skin. But both the homeguard soldiers and the Sarafan had concerns of their own, and did not notice two more cloaked figures amongst the shoving, shouting populace that lined the ave.

"Thought they'd all bin hunted out of these parts," the blacksmith replied, craning his neck to get a better look. "Saw some hides being sold, a few years back-but even those came downriver. This is somethin else, if you ask me."

The peasants continued with their gossip, but Raziel was not disposed to linger and eavesdrop; not now. He tugged Rahab back into the street once the human troops were past, ducking swiftly into another twisting, filthy alley running parallel to the main boulevard. This time there was a great deal more urgency to their progress, and no time at all for sightseeing-Raziel kept a firm hand upon Rahab's arm, pulling him along ungently whenever the younger vampire might have hesitated. There was no way the others could have been involved in the massacre at the freehold-the distance was far too great, even had Turel and others left the moment Raziel was out of sight. But whatever had caused it, the result was that the Sarafan were now out in force, and his younger brethren were vulnerable, bereft as they were of Kain's protection.

Rahab scurried to keep up, the laden folds of his cloak jouncing against mortals and objects alike in a way that made Rahab wince and feel for broken glass. As they darted down the next tight alley, a fully armed and armored Sarafan turned into the same lane, hurrying. Too late to retreat and the crowded hovels were packed too tight to jump, and Rahab raised his hands to commence battle... only to issue an undignified squeak as Raziel pinned him against one soot-stained wall.

The Sarafan pushed past both vampires with nothing but a growled curse. And then they were hurrying again, Rahab's eyes like saucers. Another turn, and they were suddenly at an intersection that Rahab recognized. Past a tavern where candlelight gleamed and a butchery now nearly empty of its day's bloody wares, and there at last crouched the dim sprawl of the abandoned warehouse.

Rahab let his breath out in a gusty sigh as he ducked under the patchy shadow of the crumbling upper levels. The cool wash over his skin was equal parts relief from the sun and a fine network of resident magics, welcoming, encompassing. Patting his pockets to be sure of his treasures, Rahab headed for the sunken stairwell that led to the cellars. The door was heavy, and as he drew it open, Rahab could hear his brothers arguing and cursing idly within, and the clack of bone dice on stone. It was only then that he realized wasn't being followed so closely as he supposed. "Raziel?" the younger vampire queried, glancing back. Perched overhead, a crow croaked. No, not a crow - a raven, heavy bodied, with thick dagger-beak.

"'Bout time you got back," growled Dumah, alerted by the creaking door. He sat, Rahab saw, on a kind of lounge fashioned by piling upon one another all the kills of the morning. The barbarian.

Letting Rahab enter first, Raziel paused, scanning their surroundings with a frown. There was something … an unease in the air, the barest prickle along his spine, that he did not like. But the warren about them was full of the normal noises that heralded the gathering dusk: the rattling of carts and the pathetic squalling of human infants, the coughs of the sick and dying and the occasional shout of anger or fear. There was no unnatural hush that might presage an attack; no scent of oiled metal or bite of holy magic upon the air. The raven perched upon the sagging roofline might be overlarge, but was only a carrion bird-common enough in these stews. It was not even a bat, much less a flock of them.

The sight of the Sarafan had left him jumping at shadows, it seemed. And the last thing he needed was for his brethren to latch upon his unformed and baseless fears! Shaking his head, he followed after Rahab, feeling the welcome net of the wards close about him. Navigating the stairs down to where the others waited, he grimaced at Dumah's chosen throne. Soon enough, the corpses would begin to reek-and since Dumah apparently had such an affinity for them, Raziel decided that he would be tasked with the chore of their disposal, once it was safe to do so.

Rahab, Dumah, Turel … Raziel scanned the shadows of the cellar, his frown deepening when the expected sight of their youngest sibling did not materialize. "Turel. Where is Zephon?" he asked sharply, unease coiling cold within his belly.

Turel glanced upward at his brother's query. "Crawled off to some hole to lick his wounds, no doubt," he said in reply, both bored and visibly uninterested in his brother's welfare. Zephon's sneaking ways had done little to endear himself to Turel, who had hardly been inclined to play nursemaid in the first place, regardless of Raziel's command.

"No. He's not that flexible," Dumah said with a shrug, missing all niceties of his brother's comment.

Turel's eyes narrowed. "Village idiots across the land are weeping for the state of their profession. It is your throw."

Vaguely aware that he might have suffered insult, Dumah hissed in pique - but it was indeed his turn at the dice, and he enjoyed gambling nearly as much as he liked fighting anyway. With a muttered curse, he picked up the dicecup. "How much longer we going to skulk here?" he demanded of Raziel, rattling the bone dice.

Rahab, who had stepped aside to permit his eldest entry, moved to squeeze past him. "I should... check on something," he murmured in feeble excuse. He'd neglected to retrive his book, and it had struck him suddenly that he should find equally safe hiding holes for his potions. Kain forbid that Turel or Dumah should find them upon him!

Rahab had scarce reached the top of the stairs, however, when... something gave him pause. He lifted his head, sniffing. It wasn't rain, nor even wet rot or bogs, and it wasn't hot steel... flowers? The distant hint of some fleshy and mottled glasshouse bloom? But that wasn't right, either.

Frozen in place for no reason Rahab could name, he watched another great raven land next to the first, then another, unafraid of the fledglings' vampiric auras which normally sent fleeing even creatures such as these.

The scent intensified with nauseating speed, became tangible as a caress, as the brush of Kain's lightningsnap aura. And coming fast, so terribly fast. Rahab shivered, realized that he was trembling. "Raziel?" It was a whisper, a breath, but there was desperation in it.


	4. Chapter 4

The scent intensified with nauseating speed, became tangible as a caress, as the brush of Kain's lightningsnap aura. And coming fast, so terribly fast. Rahab shivered, realized that he was trembling. "Raziel?" It was a whisper, a breath, but there was desperation in it.

Every inch of Raziel's skin seemed to prickle in warning, fine remnant hairs standing on end at the press of that alien power. Pivoting upon one heel, he lunged back up the stairs and yanked Rahab backwards, shoving the younger vampire roughly behind him. The wards flared to life in that same instant, fully activating in an electric-snap of lightning and smoky power, the scent of ancient blood and obsidian rising as if to announce Kain's claim. The shimmering walls of power were only half-tangible, warping the air subtly, as if the thinnest film of water stood impossibly vertical between the doorway where they stood and the outside world. But beyond it …

Beyond it, the ravens were still visible. There were now so many they had become a black blot upon the adjacent rooftop, lining the cornices, the drooping eaves and rails. They did not squawk or jostle for position, nor peck at one another. They merely settled, wings beating briefly against the sky, and stood sentinel in unnatural silence, black eyes gleaming.

"Stay back, all of you," he ordered hoarsely. It was difficult not to bare his fangs in an impotent effort to warn off whatever lay beyond the wards. As it was, every fiber of his body was tensed, prepared for the imminence of battle. Waiting for the first blow. "And Turel-find Zephon. Now!" The fledgling had to be hiding within the warehouse. If he were not …

Propelled by his brother's greater strength, Rahab hit the wall beside them with a muffled sound of cracking glass. _Kain's teeth._

Behind them, Turel stood, obedient in response to imminent threat as he was not otherwise. He cast about him, feeling actively for the muted aura of a hiding fledgling. But even as he searched rapidly, the light began to fail, attenuating, the golden light of sunset fading to swamp grey.

Dumah leapt unhesitatingly from his makeshift throne, expression intent and eager, though it was as yet unclear to him what threat they faced. He loosed the clasps of his cloak, letting the heavy fabric fall to reveal the small arsenal of weapons he wore across his back. With heavy hand, he pushed Rahab's slighter form from his path, for Dumah knew his place in battle - beside Raziel on the front lines! But... Dumah frowned in confusion. Somehow his hand had gotten wet, coated in something that made his whole arm tingle. What new, sneaking magery, this? He bared his teeth, made to turn on his bookish brother.

"It's here!" Rahab whispered hoarsely, peering up the stair, between his brothers' frames.

Outside the wards, in the main grounds of the warehouse and under the ravens' thousand glittering eyes, all was still, like a held breath. And then roiling fog shafted down, as black as Kain's mistform was pale. The mass coalesced, rising up, far too large, mist corrugating itself like hundreds of concealing wings, oil-dark feathers shifting and draping and then drawing back from rough green skin and scales like the spread of a cobra's hood - a perversion of order, the reptile evolving from the bird.

It was like nothing Raziel had ever seen. It wasn't pale, as he and his brothers were, nor did it have Kain's sharp-edged features, pointed and feral, the subdermal armor almost visible in the lines and angles of his body. This creature was a verdant green, and layered in muscle, and tall-even at this distance, he could tell it would overtop even Dumah by at least a head. Great ears, pointed like a bat's, rose past the hairless dome of its skull, and its hands were split into three massive talons, not the black-clawed five fingers of Raziel's acquaintance.

And yet … it was unmistakeably a vampire. Raziel could feel the creature's power, the inexorable compression of immense age beating down upon his skin, even through the wards. It was as if a blanket had been laid over them, muffling the outside world as it pressed them down, filling every single pore of their flesh with the strange vampire's alien reek. Raziel's lips peeled back from fangs in instinctive warning, a low growl rumbling from his throat as the interloper's slitted golden gaze fell upon them.

Raziel's hand was clenched tight about his sword-hilt, and he moved to bar the door more fully, shouldering Dumah back and ignoring the younger vampire's instinctive growl. "Who are you? What do you want here?" This-this must have been the threat that Kain had warned him against. But how did it find them here? And where was Zephon? _Zephon-where are you? Answer me!_

The final wisps of feathery mist coagulated around the alien vampire, falling in folds of silk that glistened like oil on darksome waters, an oddly fine vestment for a creature so warped. The vampire tilted its heavy-horned head, eyes the hot gold of sulphur lingering in turn on each of the trapped fledglings, delicative.

_He is not here,_ Turel whispered, even as Raziel's urgent mindcall... met a blankness, a muffled and dull feel of absorption.

"I must admit," the creature murmured, and its voice was a slide of gravel, its accent thick and strange. "Your sire has thrown pups fine in form," its mouth twisted slightly, amusement there, "even if one does bark overmuch." It moved with a kind of stately grace, casual, in no haste at all, descending a few steps to where Kain's magery split the air. "That habit, I trust, can be trained out..." the creature lifted a hand to the ward.

Raziel snarled at the insult, but otherwise did not move. Their only chance at safety lay in the protections Kain had crafted for his progeny, and while it was obvious Dumah longed to test his mettle against the interloper, shouldering up behind him in impatience, Raziel was not so eager for battle. Not against *this* creature, whose power was more akin to that of his sire than anything else he had ever known.

"Raziel," Dumah growled, his eager impatience almost palpable. "Shall we stand here and be insulted?"

"Silence!" Raziel hissed in return, without glancing away from the creature. _This is no time for rash action, Dumah! Attacking a vampire such as this would be sheerest folly-stay behind me, and protect your brethren._

He changed his focus, searching for Zephon's mind_. Zephon. Tell me where you are. _He did his best to keep the mental touch calm, coaxing. _You shall not be punished. We have brought back treasures to share … _He summoned the sense-memory of a blood glyph, the sweet tang of power and living blood sliding down his throat. Perhaps greed would serve to draw out an answer from his errant sibling ...

The wall of smoke and lightning crackled viciously as the alien vampire laid its hand there, cloven fingers and thumb spreading wide. But though the magical surface rippled and flashed, it gave not at all, not even as the creature's brow furrowed a little. "I should point out," the vampire said after a moment, skimming his fingers thoughtfully over the ward, "that I really need but one or two of you for my purposes. Come to heel like good pups, and I shall let the rest of you run free. Resist, and... tell me, how long does it take Kain to revive you from a beheading, these days?"

Raziel's Whisper again met the deadening influence of the shell-ward, but something clearly made it through this time. For just there, in the cavernous warehouse behind the monstrous vampire, flickered movement. Zephon's coppery head popped up from the cover of a ruined wall. The fledgling licked his lips, indecisive.

_Hide, Zephon,_ Raziel Whispered furiously, putting every ounce of effort and will he could to push the thought to his younger brother. There was no chance that Zephon could make it across the rubbled street to the safety of the cellars, not with that monstrous vampire directly in his path. But Zephon was surprisingly fast, even for a fledgling, and oft outmatched his elder brethren in stealth and guile. There might still be a chance for the young vampire to slink away, unnoticed by the creature currently testing the wards. Especially if Raziel made sure the ancient vampire's attention was elsewhere.

"So you *do* know of Kain, then," Raziel said in answer to the ancient vampire's sally. "Though not well, it seems, if you expect us to 'heel', as you put it, for any other but our lord."

"Perhaps we should take *your* head, creature, and paint our walls with your blood!" Dumah snarled, his bulk overtopping Raziel and almost an equal to the intruder's own. Still, his brother's authority was enough to keep him where he was-at least for the moment.

Using that brief moment of distraction created by Dumah's taunt, Raziel reached out for Zephon once again, pushing urgent images of flight, of silence and stealth, and hiding safely in the dark. Such a command was rare-used only in times of greatest danger. This might not be a Sarafan troop or a sudden-and deadly-thunderstorm, but the danger was still the same. _Run, Zephon-do not be seen. Hide well, and we will find you when it is safe._

Behind Raziel and Dumah, Turel completed his prowling inspection of the defences and exits available them. _There seem to be no ravens over the trapdoor to the inn, _he whispered, guessing that the infernal black birds and the alien vampire were somehow linked in power,_ and no way for them to observe the tunnel that enters the sewers._ Turel edged his young mage-brother further back from the stairs, taking the smaller vampire's place and uncasing his axe. Odd that Rahab was almost too busy picking pieces of glass from his cloak to notice the drama around him, but Turel had long accepted as futile any attempt to divine that fledgling's schemes.

His youngest brother, at least, was more transparent, Turel noted with dismay. Zephon began to duck back down, paused, thought better of it, regarded the tableau before him with measuring eyes. Then, craftily, he extended a hand, fingers flexing in a clear 'give me' gesture. He'd been promised a bribe by the Raziel-mind-touch, and he wanted it.

Before the fledglings, so close that Raziel could have reached out and touched it, the creature laughed, a low stony rumble. "Knew of? Ah, fledgling. I hope your grasp of history is so poor only because of the poverty of your resources, and not because of mental defect. Kain once served me, drank at my table - and betrayed me. Shall we see if he, at least, has become any more clever since I met him last?" And with that, the creature lifted his hands... and fisted them.

The broad door, its frame, and the heavy cut stones facing the entrance all shattered. Chunks of wood and flooring flagstones peeled back like sand blown from glass, pulverized, scoured away by forces unseen. Dust and rubble blasted high, tearing more holes in the upper levels and raining down like shrapnel on the streets outside.

Screams began to cut through the rowdy sounds of the slums at sunset.

Raziel ducked as the building began to quake about them, pushing Dumah and Turel backwards out of the doorway as timbers and fractured stone crashed down where they had stood. Skin and hair alike liberally adorned with the stone dust that hung in the air, he wheeled back upon the interloper, sword naked in his hand. "Are you insane?" he snarled. All his careful work and worry to ensure that they might remain hidden-obliterated in an instant! "The Sarafan are already out in force-now they shall come for all our heads!"

The wards still held, thankfully, the shimmering walls now visible in the besmirched air. However, Raziel could no longer see Zephon at all through the haze. _ Hide,_ he Whispered silently, trying to maintain his concentration even through his fear and rage. _Hide well, Zephon, and you may have as much blood of mine as you wish after we escape._ It was a foolish promise to make, especially to a creature as greedy as his brother, but confronted with both the elder before him and the very real threat of the Sarafan, Raziel had little choice.

Most of the roof of the cellar had been peeled free, like the rind from a fruit, laying naked the supporting timbers and the wards which had threaded the stone. But still the latter held, a shell of ozone rendered solid, a flickering ripple in the haze of stone dust - to the disappointment, apparently, of the alien vampire. The rafters and support beams were older, and partially rotted; one wooden post tilted sideways - Turel shouldered it roughly out of the way as it fell.

The alien vampire clasped its hands thoughtfully behind its back, casual, expression laying somewhere between amusement and incredulity. It tilted its head. "You are... threatening me with church conscripts and stripling Sarafan?" the elder asked, making no move to draw a blade of its own. "Tell me, Raziel - were you dropped on your head shortly after raising, perhaps? Or... hn." The creature paused abruptly as several of the ravens took wing, circling, their harsh cries muted in the dust-laden air.

This time, when the alien vampire reached out, it crooked just one thick talon-finger. Raziel could almost see the intense flare of telekinetic magery. Another shattering crash, and as if drawn by ropes behind horses, Zephon was dragged through the rubble and stone dust. To the fledgling's credit, he thrashed and fought but made no sound at all - until he was jerked upright. As lightly as if he were plucking a torch off the wall, the creature reached out and seized Zephon by the throat. The fledgling assaulted viciously the arm holding him, writhing, nails flashing, snarling, spitting like an alley cat. "Is this the young mongrel that has been rattling around behind my back?" the creature asked, appearing not to much notice Zephon's resistance as it studied him, not greatly impressed. "Well. I never did understand all of Kain's tastes."

And with a muscular twist, the elder vampire snapped Zephon's neck.

The minute those massive talons closed about Zephon's neck, Raziel was moving, leaving the safety of the wards, Whispered commands flashing at the speed of thought to his brothers.

_Dumah, with me. _ Expecting subtlety or restraint from Dumah would be a fool's game, therefore, Raziel did not. _Take him down; now is your chance to claim his head as your own._ He switched tracks, focusing on Turel. _Turel, move swiftly-Dumah will make the main charge, I the flank in the hopes that he will need both hands free to deal with us. Harry the creature if you can, but reclaiming Zephon is to be your goal-once the creature releases him in order to battle us, grab him and pull back behind the wards. We cannot afford to have him remain upon the field as a hostage. _ It went without saying that Zephon was far too weak to be of any use against an enemy as formidable as this.

Then, one last command to his remaining brother-_Rahab, remain behind the wards, no matter what. If we fail, you must carry word to Kain. Use the sewer to make your escape if you must-remain underground and hidden from the sky for as long as you can. _ He spared a brief moment of regret for not taking more of the spell-vials they had found-the holy ones would have been most useful against the creature that now stood before them.

Zephon's neck broke with a flat *crack*, and Raziel snarled, diving low, sword flashing out to cut the ancient vampire down at the knees. "Die, foul creature!" If he needed to hack the creature to pieces to ensure his brothers' escape, then so be it!

The ancient vampire laughed, a low grating, as Raziel charged. "How many times have I heard _that_ from your lips, child?" the creature asked, stepping back with a kind of agility something so large as he should not have possessed. "Just like old ti..." and then Dumah hit him.

Jagged handblade in each fist, face twisted in a terrible snarl, Dumah was a blur of fury and steel. He slammed elbow-first into the creature's side, weapons moving so fast the metal sang as it cut the air... and silk, and dense-armored skin. Droplets of black blood scented the air. The elder vampire hissed, striking Dumah from him with a fist like a sledgehammer, even as he twisted to avoid Raziel's next lunge.

Turel eased himself from the protection of the wards, shivering a little at the feel of magics crawling over his skin. He stole a split second to take the measure of the chaos before him. Handblades were damnably difficult to wield - when had Dumah practiced? But then his sibling was flung away like a ragdoll, and Turel spotted an opening. Darting forward, he hacked at the thick-corded arm holding Zephon.

With an expression almost of perplexity, the green-skinned vampire dropped his limp prize in favor of drawing his sword. Zephon hit the ground with a shimmer, a dull greenish shell forming around and over him.

Dumah slammed into the broken remnants of a wall in a shower of dirt and rubble, rolling with the impact. The blow was not enough to deter Kain's third-born, however-he rolled to his feet, and charged forward again with a roar. Thick-skulled Dumah might be, but none could ever say that it did not show to his advantage on the battlefield.

Raziel knew from hard-won experience that there was no chance he could match this elder vampire in strength-not when even the merest glancing backhand blow was enough to send him reeling. Lunging inward, he ducked underneath the green creature's first swing, slicing his own blade in a shallow gash across that corded abdomen and then diving away at the end of his stroke. The silken cloth parted instantly, as did the verdant flesh beneath-only to seal over again moments later, leaving only the remnant blood upon his blade as evidence it had ever existed.

Snarling, Raziel attacked again, only to have that blue-steel blade sweep around at impossible speed. Only a desperate parry stopped the edge from his throat, and the elder's blade bit deep into his own with the screaming of metal upon metal, gouging deep and driving him to one knee. Disengaging, Raziel retreated, using Dumah's bull-rush to give himself room to maneuver. Then he was upon his foe once more, the two fledgling vampires harrying their ancient foe like wolves upon a bull, drawing him away from their fallen brother.

Turel, seeing his chance, lunged for Zephon's fallen form-only to have his reaching hands repelled in a scorching magical rebuke by the shield that lay over his brother's body. _ Damnation-Raziel, the creature has warded him somehow. I cannot move him!_

In momentary distraction at his brother's whisper, Raziel lost the last six inches of his sword to the elder's blue-steel blade, the inferior metal parting like paper, and then he was fully engaged in fighting for his life. Turel winced; there'd be no help from that quarter. Damnation, thrice over!

Turel reared back, axe held high, and chopped down over Zephon's leg, which Turel judged an acceptable loss. The ward crackled and repelled the weapon, blunting it and nearly jarring it from Turel's hands. No good. Blast this overgrown goblin to the pits of - Turel's eyes narrowed as the creature, laughing, flung Raziel from him with a bolt of magical force. Calculating rapidly, Turel shifted his stance and his grip on the axe. He whispered _get down, Dumah!_ into his brother's murder-red mind, even as he flung his axe. The heavy weapon flipped end over end, missing Dumah by a hair's breadth. The elder vampire batted the axe from the air with a hiss of annoyance, and leveled a bolt of energy at Turel, even as Raziel rejoined the fray.

Turel dove for cover... behind Zephon's insensate body. The creature's bolt struck the ward it had laid. Crackling and spitting, the shield absorbed the forcebolt - and refracted it straight up, punching through the remains of the roof, jettisoning debris. Some hundreds of feet overhead, the bolt detonated like an eastern fire-blossom, brighter than the sunset.

The ward over Zephon still held. This time, Turel cursed aloud.

From his perch atop a rafter under Kain's protection, Rahab observed his brothers' plight. The fight was a blade-flashing blur, a cruel kind of game, Raziel and Dumah rapidly growing more battered and the ancient apparently little worse for wear. Turel... Rahab swallowed hard, gnawed at his lip in indecision. The creature's shield was hurriedly-made, and after the force bolt, threads of magic drifted loosely around it, unconnected ends by which to perhaps unravel the whole mass. Rahab looked to Raziel - just in time to see Kain's eldest lose his sword to a wrenching twist - and back to Zephon. And then Rahab darted through Kain's ward-bubble. As the last of the Kainites left the protection of the cellars, the shield there began to power down, attenuating.

Across the warehouse, the creature caught Raziel's mangled blade in its bare hand, reversed it, and stabbed backwards, meeting Dumah's furious charge. The broken sword pierced the fledgling below the sternum, driving through, exiting between the ribs. This time, Dumah did cry out, a short, shocked scream as he staggered back, trying to wrench the jagged weapon free of his flesh.

The monstrous vampire laughed darkly. "I did so hope it would come to this, fledgling," it said, extending its free hand to Raziel. But this was no gesture of invitation, for steely bands of telekinetic power dragged the young vampire to a halt, compressed his ribcage, lifting him off the ground as if his struggles were simply beneath notice. "We have so much to-" something _thwapped_, and the creature frowned down at a crossbow quarrel embedded in the leathery skin and fine scales at the center of its chest.

"Die, foul creature!"

That first quarrel was rapidly followed by others as a jumbled group of city guards and Sarafan charged into the narrow confines of their makeshift battlefield. The guardsmen were visibly apprehensive, eyes white-ringed as they released bolt after bolt into the melee, heedless of the danger to human bystanders. To encounter not just one, but six vampires, right in the heart of Haven-it was a thing unheard of, a positive plague of bloodsuckers, and their terror at combatting such monsters was obvious.

The Sarafan, however, were another matter entirely. Armed and anonymous behind church-crafted helms, they joined the fray without hesitation. Vampires had become a rare breed since the last crusade, but they were nonetheless well-trained warriors, veterans of many battles with the lesser supernatural beasts that still plagued less-settled lands. Armed with sword and pike, holy symbols upon shields and armor, they charged forward as one, shouting their defiance and intent upon cutting down their prey.

Caught in an invisible grasp and now weaponless, Raziel belatedly registered the entrance of the Sarafan with something close to despair. Without the protection of Kain's wards, there was little chance for his brothers. Against such a combination of foes, how were any of them to survive?

_Turel, Dumah, Rahab-you must run! Retrieve Zephon if you can, but if you cannot, then escape whilst the Sarafan blunt their blades against this creature!_

Only Dumah, caught in a haze of frustration and battle-frenzy, had the temerity to protest_. "But-"_

_Do it NOW!_

His blade gone, Raziel resorted to the only weapon that remained to him. Even wounded, the creature's invisible grip had not weakened-but he had made the mistake of allowing Raziel within arm's reach of his prey. Straining, he lashed out with every ounce of strength, and sank his fangs deep into the meat of the elder vampire's arm, the only part of the creature he could reach. The taste of the elder's blood hit him like a thunderbolt, left him blind and deaf as purest power cascaded over his tongue, and instinct took over as thought fled, deepening the bite in a determined attempt to tear flesh from those ancient bones.

"Vorador," said the elder, glancing at Raziel's sharp-fanged struggles with clear amusement - and, oddly, a certain nostalgic fondness. He dragged the fledgling closer, out of the path of an incoming quarrel. "My name is not 'creature'; I am Vorador." the elder stated, sheathing his sword and prying Raziel's snarling, snapping jaws from his arm. The wound there was deep, taking a few moments to close. A light tossing motion served to fling Raziel, still bound up like a spider's silk-wrapped prey but his mouth smeared with the distillation of aeons, away from the onrushing knights. Vorador moved with casual ease to meet them, hands spread, drawing attention to himself, a single figure in once-fine robes standing alone against twenty armed and roaring men.

"You should know the name of your killer, after all," said the elder conversationally, his chest bristling with missile shafts. A faint purple glow gathered around his great-clawed hands. "Particularly since you were meant to be occupied out of town by now."

Rahab, crouched beside Turel, ducked lower and shivered. Could the humans feel the sepulchular mist, the rising grave-wind? He watched in awe as a curtain of shadowy symbols - flowering whorls and circles cut and quartered, jagged glyphs and arcane equations - closed around the battlefield, passing in ghostly tatters through walls, a strange and subvisual encircling. Beautiful. And wrong, so very, very wrong. It raised the fine hairs at the back of Rahab's neck.

"I will have to have a word with your inefficient watch commander," said Vorador thoughtfully. Overhead, the ravens took wing as one, feathers slapping the air as they fled. An odd little frisson passed over the vampires. And then every living creature within the arc of that great arcane wheel began to scream.

Metal clanged, knights dropping their weapons, yeomen their pikes. The mortals clutched at their bellies as if poisoned, their heads as if deafened. Scrabbling hands tore helmets and armor away, and then more, each soldier gouging at his flesh with his own nails. Foul purplish liquid seeped from the soldiers' eyes and the wounds they carved upon themselves; some vomited, or lost control of their bowels. The spell seemed to work more slowly upon the leaders among the knights, those wearing the greatest array of holy symbols. They screamed the longest.

One knight, tearing at his wrist with his teeth, managed to peel the flesh away from pale bone, his strength desperate. The rest of the hand came off more quickly, laying bare every joint and articulation. Bony fingers carved deeper than fleshy ones, and scalp and eyes and face tore away like clay. The knight's screams stopped when his own skeleton gouged out his throat, and then there was only the cold slap of meat as the animated corpse set to freeing itself of skin and muscle and organs. Then it took a few shambling steps and began to assist its nearest neighbor. One by one, the undead emerged from the living.

Turel swallowed hard. _Stay here. Stay down, be ready to run,_ he whispered into Rahab's mind, and then left the scant protection of the elder's ward. He kept low, but there were no more crossbow bolts - every soldier lucky enough to have been outside the spell's influence had fled. The skeletons paid him no heed as he reached Dumah's side. The younger vampire had fallen to one knee, teeth gritted. He'd drawn two bolts from his hide, but the notches and jags which Raziel's blade had acquired made it neigh impossible to remove without better leverage - which Turel supplied, wrenching the steel free with a terrible hiss of metal on bone. Dumah choked on his agony, then lunged as Turel offered the crook of his elbow and the thick artery there; he could afford Dumah only a few moments to recover, and the wrist was too slow by far.

Rahab nodded firmly, hoping very sincerely not to be noticed by anything at all, awed by the magnitude of the necromancy he had witnessed. The ward over Zephon's body was a much simpler thing. It had deflected half a dozen crossbow bolts, and now there were many loose ends - Rahab could feel them. They were right there. Rahab reached out with fingers that still tingled from that first broken potion, and tugged on them.

Engaged in removing the quarrels from his own hide and ruined silk robe, Vorador winced. "You do begin to try my patience, fledglings," he said, turning. There was a degree of weariness in the set of his shoulders.

The elder's sulfur gaze fell on Rahab like a weight. In desperation, the fledgling grabbed at another handful of tangled magical threads.

The ward around Zephon collapsed with a faint and deflating hiss.

With his own hiss of surprise, the ancient vampire seized Rahab from across the warehouse, flung him away with an easy sweep of telekinesis. Rahab tumbled over the floor and fetched up hard against a wall - scattering a trail of glittering vials behind him. One of them clinked, bounced, rolled over the uneven floor, finally coming to rest in a skeleton's shambling path.

One bony foot descended, coming down squarely upon the warded vial. The glass vial shattered under the weight, its wire-wrapped wards no match against the skeleton's oblivious tread …

… and the world erupted into flame.

Incinerating its luckless skeletal benefactor in an instant, an elemental salamander boiled out of the scattered shards of its prison, coiling upward within a cascading pillar of fire. The shockwave of the blast sent the remainder of the skeletons tumbling, blackening bone and setting the remnant clothing aflame. Vampires and humans alike were blown off their feet and scrambled for cover, taking refuge behind whatever they could find as fire licked over stone and wood alike, racing over the ground and up the sides of ramshackle buildings, hanging unnaturally upon the very air.

Screaming in terror, the unlucky inhabitants of the stews fled, stumbling out into the streets only to find themselves trapped by flame upon on all sides. As if fed by the humans' fear, the fire seemed to redouble its efforts, flames leaping unnaturally through empty space to fasten themselves upon the rooftops, the rising wind fanning the inferno ever higher. Caught at the heart of the blaze, Turel and the others cowered behind what remained of the warehouse's rubbled walls, cringing as the fire licked ever nearer. Even Dumah's battle-fury stood little chance against this most elemental of terrors, and only Turel's hard grip upon his shoulder kept him from abandoning his brethren in order to escape the flames.

Still pinned and helpless within the elder vampire's telekinetic grip, Raziel strained against his invisible bonds. To be caught so, helpless while flames licked at flesh and bone until one was nothing but ash-it was any vampire's worst nightmare. Terror threatened to overwhelm thought entirely-and before he could lose what remained of his sense, he reached out for his brother.

_The sewers, Turel! Retrieve Zephon, and take the others-they are your charges now. Leave me, and run for the sewer entrance-Rahab can lead you to a place that is safe! _ For if this unnatural fire continued, the entirety of Freeport might well be set ablaze-then only the sewers and the sand warrens beneath the earth would be safe. Floating cinders licked at his skin, his hair, and Raziel's own trapped panic turned his Whisper into a sharp-edged mental scream. _RUN!_

_Don't you dare play martyr, you rock-headed excuse for a..._ Turel whispered furiously, then lost concentration as the spiraling column of flame broke through the thick beams which held up what remained of the upper warehouse levels. No natural flame had ever been so malignant, impossibly quick to seek out destruction. With a terrible, snapping groan, the building began to collapse.

Daring not to draw breath lest the superheated air scorch him from the inside, Turel turned on Dumah. _Get Rahab and get out!_ Turel ordered, shoving his brother in the right direction. Mouth smeared with his elder's blood, his impalement wound a fiery lance of agony in his side and animal panic tearing at his mind, Dumah needed no further command. He broke and fled for the street, hesitating only to seize up Rahab, stunned and scorched, as he ran. The young mage's cries of protest - or of terror - were swallowed by the screaming, fleeing mob and the roar of the inferno.

Embers and slabs of roofing slate rained down around Turel as he ran. A great arm of flame licked from the fire elemental's mass, splintering skeletons, setting Turel's cloak alight as he threw himself beneath it. Turel rolled to his feet and ripped the heavy fabric away, leapt a flailing, crumbling skeleton. _Curse you, Raziel - where are you?_

Across the warehouse, Vorador shouldered away the sheet metal which the initial blast had jettisoned atop him, and stood, brushing himself off as he surveyed the unfolding disaster. Peasants ran screaming past the flaming remains of the warehouse's one wooden wall, and the tavern across the street had already erupted in flames. Only eight - no, now six - of his painstakingly crafted undead remained, dumbly striking at insubstantial flames with swords that melted in their hands, their bones shattering as the marrow boiled within. And the fledglings - Vorador waved a falling beam away before it could crush the second-eldest whelp - were escaping. How had rank neonates managed _this?_

The salamander - that living core of flame - turned with a howl upon him, and Vorador raised another shield with well-practiced gestures. Enveloped in a translucent, cool-blue bubble, the ancient vampire strode unhesitating through the smoke and furious flames. Another grinding snap overhead, and Vorador frowned, raised both hands, telekinetically catching the whole of the collapsing roof and binding it midair. Flaming timbers roared and crackled but did not fall. _By Janos. _ His own fledglings had never been this bloody difficult.

The youngest of Kain's brood was closest, laying battered and burned, flames sprouting from stone to caress his insensate skin. Vorador seized up the limp form and, with unaccustomed difficulty, worked the magery to teleport the whelp away. It had been centuries since Vorador found himself forced to handle so many simultaneous spellweaves. Thoroughly aggravated, Vorador went to retrieve the other two fledglings.

Blinded by flames and smoke on all sides, Raziel could do nothing but strain against his bonds, putting every ounce of his vampiric strength into a vain attempt to free an arm, a hand, anything at all-only to have all his efforts achieve exactly nothing. Licking flames curled up a nearby fallen timber, then jumped to catch his cloak alight. Purest terror fogging his vision, Raziel cried out, then choked, coughing helplessly as smoke and the incendiary air seared his lungs.

Diving out of the way of yet another burst of flame, Turel slapped away burning cinders with frantic hands, then scrambled to his feet, searching through the haze for his brother. But vision and scent alike were useless in midst of this chaos, where all about him was smoke and flame. Then, through the hissing roar of the salamander, he heard a cry. _Raziel! _ He began to run towards it-then paused as the glint of glass caught his eye. Upon the ground was a vial-one of the ones Rahab had been carrying, akin to the one that had started this imbroglio, capped only with a pearl. He hesitated, then scooped it up and ran. Any weapon, even an unknown one, was better than none at all.

When this was over, he was going to throttle Rahab. Just throttle him. Raziel too. Sustained by that pleasant thought, Turel tucked the vial into his belt and darted around the smoking remains of lesser undead.

A few more steps, and Turel nearly stumbled over his brother. Raziel's clothing was already alight, and were Turel fool enough to breathe, he knew he'd smell scorching hair... and skin. Scarce breaking stride, Turel seized his brother's arm, dragging the dead weight even as he tore at Raziel's flaming cloak and tunic. Tossing the scraps of fabric aside, he hoisted his brother's body facedown over his shoulder and ran.

The smoke and flames parted before him, and Turel knew a momentary ray of hope. And then, cloaked in a sphere of cool air, the vampire ancient stepped from the inferno, a jade idol wreathed in flames. "Going somewhere, fledgling?" Vorador said, eyes narrowed.

Surrounded by flame upon all sides, Raziel still struggling blindly upon his shoulder, Turel did not stop to bandy words. Spotting a crumbling gap within a nearby fire-wreathed wall, he dived for it, slamming his unburdened shoulder against the weakened stone with every gram of vampiric strength he possessed. The wall crumbled, dumping both fledglings upon the other side in a shower of stone and cinders. Panic beating against the confines of his skin, Turel wrapped black-clawed fingers about Raziel's flailing arm, intending to yank his brother free and escape this hellish place.

The remains of the wall through which they'd come shattered outwards, reduced to pebble-sized chunks, a stone hail that fell across the entire street, clattered against nearby buildings. Parting the rubble with a sweep of his hand, the elder vampire stepped through, an easy stride that moved him with such impossible speed - Kain's grace in the body of a juggernaught. "Perhaps I neglected to mention -" he said, seizing up Turel by the throat, three great leathery talons like bands of steel, "- that you fledglings have strained my patience quite thoroughly. Now tell me..." the talons tightened even as Turel fought, lashing out against green skin that still showed no evidence of past injury, "..what shall I do with the two of you?"

Wide-eyed, Turel could feel it, could feel the ancient's wrist rotate, and knew that his neck would snap in this merciless grasp as easily as Zephon's...

...when Raziel, having freed a single arm from his weakened telekinetic bonds, wrapped his hand about one massive green ankle, yanked himself forward, and sank his fangs deep into the dense green muscle of the elder's leg.

Scorched and weakened, the terrorized fledgling held on with the tenacity of a bulldog; but despite Raziel's best efforts, the wound was trivial, an annoyance at best. Vorador did not even flinch, glancing away from his newest captive for but a moment-

-but that moment was all Turel needed.

With a single swift movement, Turel grasped desperately for his purloined vial, alien magic sparking against his fingertips, and smashed the fragile glass down upon that broad green brow. Liquid infused with the holiest of magics splashed outward, anointing fledgling and elder vampire skin alike, and Turel's own scream was lost in the thunder of Vorador's pained roar. Dropping his prey, the elder vampire staggered backwards, flinging his head from side to side in a vain attempt to rid himself of the inimical magic that was searing its way into undead flesh.

The burn was deeper than flames, more bitter than the acid bite of water. It sank into every tissue, uncoiling the very essence of vampiric existence, unmaking substance. The pain was indescribable, incandescent, worse than any torment or injury Turel could remember suffering. The spattered droplets were the stab of a dozen envenomed stilettos, and his hand - if he could have formed words, drawn breath for anything but screaming, he'd have begged for its amputation. Vorador's devastating backhand, a flailing bodyblow that shattered ribs and flung the fledgling across the avenue and through several crude wooden walls, was a comparative mercy.

But by far, most of the potent anointing oil - a king's ransom, and enough to consecrate the grounds of several churches - had splashed over the vampire ancient. Dense green flesh smoked, blackened to ash, and did not heal. Behind them, the warehouse caved in with a terrible booming crash and gout of embers, smashing skeletons and cellars and the fire elemental beneath tons of stone and timber; only the shield still sparking around the elder kept the flaming debris from crushing Raziel in an instant. Vorador's aura, that oppressive field of power that seemed to thicken the very air around him, blackened and deepened into rage, dampening the fledgling's minds, broadcasting his fury for miles - every animal, every human with even a spark of mage-sense, knew tangible and unreasoning terror.

The rough leather of talons - now corroded and blackened - closed with cruel strength on Raziel's head, around the curve of Raziel's skull, and Vorador dragged the fledgling upright and off the ground with that monstrous grip. The elder's visage was a horror-mask, a blackened ruin, the sweep of his ears eaten away and great scar runnels carved in his flesh, a fang the length of Raziel's finger gleaming where part of Vorador's lip was gone. "That," hissed the elder, squeezing, "was _unmannerly._"

Twisting and writhing within that relentless grip, Raziel hissed at his captor, bloodied fangs bared in a grimace of defiant terror. Flames had already scorched wide swathes of skin, and a few stray droplets of holy oil had seared their way even deeper, carving agonizing bloody trails over an arm and one shoulder. The inferno around them alone was enough to terrorize any fledgling-much less one now wounded and pinned by an enraged elder-and nothing remained of the proud warrior that Kain had left behind to guard his progeny. Only a creature of instinct remained, frenzied with fear and desperate to flee, to find some dark place, to seek out the safety of his Sire's protection. Thrashing, he kicked and bit at empty air, hissing impotently and crying out in pain as his own efforts tore open burned flesh, creating gaping, black-edged wounds.

Mouth tight, skin still sizzling, Vorador stalked to a place where a few stones remained stacked atop one another in semblance of a wall, Raziel's thrashing legs dragging through the debris. Then, like a man breaking open a melon, the ancient smashed the fledgling's head upon the stones. The concussive thunk was meaty, wet-sounding - not quite hard enough. It took two more skull-cracking bashes before the young vampire went limp, brain bruised beyond tolerance.

The rest of the Kainites were close, Vorador could sense them cowering. But, injured more seriously than he'd been in centuries and with scores more Sarafan surely on their way, Vorador saw little profit in pursuit. He had what he needed, what he'd come for.

Vorador called upon his magery and vanished, Kain's firstborn firmly in hand.


	5. Chapter 5

Cowrite with HopeofDawn. This section contains MAJOR VIOLENCE AND TORTURE. I'm afraid this is the last chapter we can post up - warnings for slash, kink, non-con, and all kinds of other horrible badness apply to everything after this. If you still wanna continue, you can check out archiveofourown(dot)org/works/180073/chapters/264780. You can feed the authors anonymously there, or review here (if your private messaging is turned on, we'll write back. Promise!). Enjoy!

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It was an eternity before Raziel stirred again-or at least so it seemed, given how he felt. Every inch of him seemed to hurt, his skin burning from where it was wrapped around his cold and hungry bones. The dichotomy didn't make sense, but Raziel was past caring-all he knew was that he was hungry, desperately so, and yet every time he moved, he was punished for his temerity with agonizing spikes of pain that broke him apart and sent him spiralling back into the dark once more.

Another age passed-an eon, during which the mountains themselves must surely have fallen and risen again-and then something changed. Hot life, rich and iron-bright, dripped over his tongue, slicked over cracked lips. He reached for it blindly, driven by a need that overrode the pain, and dug fingers into soft flesh and yielding warmth as he bit down and drank, sucking down the rich and glorious vitae with the desperation of a drowning man. It settled warm in his belly, thawed the icy cold of his bones as he drank until there was nothing left, pulling out every last drop and searching for more. Then he sank backwards, embracing the dark stillness again, feeling the subtle changes in himself … bones shifting, small internal movements that realigned what had been broken, sealed what had been torn. His eyes, when he opened them, registered only a world of soft edges and dizzying twists that refused to focus, but scent and touch told him of hard, smooth stone beneath him, of musk and sandalwood and blood upon the air, and over it all another scent, one that permeated everything in this place. Steel and smoke and ancient blood … it was the scent of an elder vampire, and Kain's enemy-Vorador.

That scent brought an instinctive tensing, and the grit and tackiness of bare but dirty skin on seamless marble, the contact unfiltered by clothing. Not even his cloak or boots were left to Raziel - and when had that happened? The bitter ashy taste of the fire was still in his mouth, clinging to his skin. After some time, the dim greenish blur directly before Raziel's eyes resolved itself into dark stone floor, exquisitely cut and shot through with veins of silver and white. A small movement of one bare foot encountered the cool polished curve of hardwood, and metal and woolen threads bundled together like a tassel. It took minutes more before Raziel's vision quit swimming in and out of focus whenever he tried to fix on anything more than a few feet away, and even still, his surroundings were revealed only in glimpses - heavily embroidered fabrics, gold leaf and iron filigree, stone and wood both polished to a reflective luster. Elegantly solid pieces of furniture, the function of which was difficult to divine from this angle, crystal fixtures cupping faint magelights... and a door, standing ajar.

What manner of prison was this?

After a time, he slid a hand across the smooth stone of the floor, flexing fingers experimentally. When the movement was not immediately punished by pain, he tried again, this time moving both hands in an attempt to push himself upwards. The resulting movement produced a chorus of aches from the entirety of his body, not to mention a nauseating wave of dizziness that threatened to send him crashing downward once more. Clenching his teeth, he held on, and after a few moments the world settled back into its normal alignment.

His head felt like an egg, precariously balanced upon his neck and threatening to fall at any moment. After successfully propping himself against a nearby wall, he gingerly explored his skull with one hand. There were softer spots upon the surface of his skull, ones that he did not remember from before, with dried blood clumped together in his hair and crusted over still-healing wounds. It seemed his head truly did bear rather more resemblance to a cracked egg than he'd realized- Raziel supposed he should be grateful that at least the yolk still seemed to be in place.

His gaze, however, was inevitably drawn back to that invitingly open door. Surely escape could not be so easy … but it was not in his nature to give up without ever trying. With one hand against the wall, he struggled to his knees-then, carefully, to his feet. Ignoring the shameful weakness of his limbs, he began his slow progress towards the door, grasping at walls and furniture as he went. The hunger in his belly was a gnawing, cold thing, and it did little to still the fine trembling of his hands as he reached his goal. Still, he reached for the open doorjamb, in order that he might pass through-

-only to be thrown backwards, his shaky balance spilling him again to the floor as a ward flared to life, shocking his reaching hand and rendering it numb to the wrist. If he had not been so injured, the shock would have been nought more than an annoyance, quickly shaken away. As it was, he did not move for several long minutes, panting through the pain. Then, grimly, he pushed himself to his feet once more, determined to explore the rest of this overly-ornate cell. Surely there must be something he could use ...

The room was large, with a number of nooks and drawers to be examined, though the first few that Raziel opened contained nothing save brushes and small glass vials, ink and vellum, wax ingots and a blunted and ornate letter opener. Fine tapestries and mirrors graced some of the walls, and between them hung manacles. There were restraints, too, in strange places upon some of the tables, benches, and the broad and curtained expanse of the bed. One particularly elaborate device, in the center of the room, seemed like a padded stand, slightly tilted, as if to support a reclining torso slightly above waist-height. A sculpture of a fawn, apparently solid silver from the weight and warm metal glow, was not attached to its marble pedestal, and could perhaps be used as a clubbing instrument. Drapes hung near the piece of art, the embroidered damask swaying a little in a draft of cool, humid air.

More carefully this time, Raziel eased back the heavy curtain, finding that it slid open on rings. Beyond lay a wide balcony, stonework lit in starlight. He was permitted only a single step outside before his outstretched fingertips encountered the perimeter of a ward akin to the one on the door, an electrical tingling that hinted at a greater rebuff if Raziel tried to pass. But a step was far enough to glimpse what lay below, beyond the delicately carved railing.

_Water. _

Not merely a moat nor pools, but rather a swamp, vast and rampantly green. The rustling tops of buttressed swamp-trees stretched for as far as Raziel could see, choking the horizon for a hundred miles or more. The distant cries of strange animals, inaudible inside the chamber, rang through the night. Far below, lights like uplifted lanterns drifted - will-o-wisps, renowned for leading men to death in the sucking mud. Vines draped the mansion's stonework, pale green moths the size of Raziel's two spread hands plied the luminous blossoms, flitting between thorns as big as they.

"I was beginning to suspect you might lay in torpor for a week," Vorador rumbled from behind - for all his great mass, he moved in silence. "And to think, I imagined that the spawn of Kain would prove more... durable." The elder had found silks to replace the ones destroyed in battle. But other insults, evidently, were more trouble to erase - rivulets still scored the flesh down the elder's green-skinned face and neck, the great upsweep of his ears was notched and uneven.

At the sound of the elder's voice, Raziel turned-perhaps a little too fast. The world lurched sickeningly, and he was forced to dig his fingers into the balcony's molded archway for balance, forcing himself to remain upright. Ignoring the other vampire's insults, he asked instead, "Where am I? Why have you done this?"

Attacks by humans, he knew well-but never before had he encountered a vampire who was not blood-kin or his Sire. Much less one of such immense power; even now he could feel it pressing down upon him, so thick it was almost palpable. Fear and guilt suddenly assailed him-Kain had warned him against this creature, had charged him with his brothers' welfare, and he had failed in his duty. What would happen to him now? And where were the others? Had they escaped?

The elder vampire arched a brow ridge, the horny-looking tissue fissured and pocked by the splash of Turel's vial of holy magic. "This is the Termogent Forest, child; my dominion - and you are hardly in a position to ask so many questions." The ancient tilted his head slightly, leaning back against an odd, padded table. His gaze was like a weight on Raziel, assessing, measuring. The aura that lapped against Raziel's mind seemed to thicken, a subtle and easy expansion. Vorador's voice was a tremor, an earth-deep vibration in the base of the fledgling's brain. "Come here."

Raziel's knees almost buckled under that potent call. Concerned only with survival, every vampiric instinct he possessed called for his submission, to abase himself before his elder and hope for mercy. But Raziel's own stubbornness ran even deeper, an unyielding obxidian core that tightened his lips and steeled his spine. Lifting his head before Vorador, he refused to move. Raziel's defiant nature had long been a source of frustration and pride both for his Sire over the decades-now it served to harden his will against a creature unfathomably older.

"I think not," he said evenly, fangs bared in an instinctive snarl. "Having experienced your kindness once, creature, I find myself not particularly inclined to invite it again."

Vorador chuckled, a deep rumble, a genuine sound of amusement. He stroked his palm over the crushed velvet padding of the inclined device against which he leaned, the gesture idle and lazy, as if Vorador had all the time in the world. Perhaps he did. "A spirited young wolf, to be sure," he murmured. Not even Kain, as a newly-risen fledgling, had evidenced such fine and fiery temper. Certainly, none of his own spawn had resisted Vorador so, not for long, and not while wounded, filthy, and scarce able to stand. What a challenge - delightful, really.

Such a shame that this fledgling wore the body of a murderer of thousands, from the ages when Vorador had let himself become attached to his progeny, when he'd thought that immortality meant forever. And now their little killer wavered before him, in a body that could bear some fraction of the retribution due him. That, too, was a pleasant thought. "I wonder, cub, which of your victims you remember? Decimus, perhaps? Tita's coven... or Aula?" Odd. He thought he'd long ago excised the pain of their loss. He dare not even think of his greatest loss of all - he'd spent too long in piecing his sanity back together after... well. After.

Raziel frowned, his brow knitting in puzzlement. "Victims? Is that why you have done this? Because we somehow killed those you had marked for your own?" Kain could take great offense, Raziel knew, if any of his progeny overreached in their greed and tried to claim what he saw as his. Perhaps this elder had become incensed over a similar trespass? But Raziel had never been to this desolate place, nor ever encountered another vampire besides his brethren before now-how could they have possibly trespassed upon such an ancient creature's territory and never known it?

"I do not know any of those names," he said warily, eyeing the elder before him with trepidation. "Is there some reason that I should?" Did elders often name their prey before slaking their thirst? It seemed an odd habit to cultivate ...

"You... 'somehow killed' - _some reason?_" Vorador was there and then... just gone, fast beyond the ability of the eye to follow. Raziel never saw the blow, the heavy cuff that struck him to the finely-crafted floor. The fledgling had a moment only to catch his breath before he was hauled upright again, this time in a familiar telekinetic grip that left his toes above the floor. "Some _reason_, Raziel?" the baring of the elder's fangs as he hissed was a terrifying thing, on levels deeper than the mere rational. The ancient lifted his leathery palm again, as if to strike once more... then halted, stilled.

Infuriating, this little knight. It had been decades since Vorador had found himself the subject of such mockery, subtle or no. Of course, before Kain, Vorador had thought himself beyond entrapment in these petty games - for millennia he'd been the one to set the rules, to name the stakes. Perhaps this Sarafan whelp should be made to play for something greater. "A fine question, fledgling," Vorador rumbled as if to acknowledge Raziel's scored point. He stroked his upraised hand lightly down the side of Raziel's angular face instead, all hint of his sudden surge of anger now vanished. "And now I have one of my own. Were you aware that you would be affected thusly... by your own weapon of choice?" The elder's talons were textured, catching, like shark's hide as they slid down, over Raziel's shoulder, to the place where droplets of holy anointing oil had splashed. The channels and pits carved by each tiny drop were still raw and open, and with every evidence of enjoyment, the ancient vampire dipped the tips of his talons into the wounds.

Already battered and dizzied by the earlier blow, Raziel cried out, the sharp-edged agony of those talons digging deep into his unhealed wounds taking him by surprise. Throwing his head back, he tried to arch away from that tortuous touch, to no avail. The elder's telekinetic grip was just as immutable as it had been in Freeport, offering no chance at escape.

Those massive talons twisted delicately, and Raziel bit back another abortive cry, containing it behind gritted teeth. "I … I don't understand," he panted, caught between the urge to cringe away and the urge to snarl defiance at his tormentor. "You attacked us … drew the Sarafan to our door. W-why are you punishing us for defending ourselves?" Was this creature not a vampire too? Was it possible he was in league with the humans, in order that he might better hunt his own kind?

"If memory serves, fledgling, you chose battle over submission, did you not?" The touch grew lighter, a soft stroking. "It would have been simpler to collar you on the spot, and let you free. Though I must admit..." Vorador found another deep burn, and contemplatively, delicately, slipped the point of his talon into the open wound. "...I am rather pleased that you resisted. Your choice affords us so much more time to... re-examine our shared history, don't you think?" And the elder twisted his talon.

When Raziel's breathless cry had subsided, Vorador spoke again. "Before we begin in truth, however, I should make certain that *your* collar does not chafe overmuch. T'would not do to choke you, now would it? Tell me, Raziel - are you experiencing any mental discomfort?"

Raziel bit back another pained gasp-then, as the question registered, could not suppress a bark of laughter, his expression drawn into a agonized parody of humor. Discomfort? Terrorized, beaten, his head feeling as if it might truly crack in twain like a rotted fruit, and Vorador's talons digging into already-injured flesh-and the elder wished to know whether he was *comfortable*? He snarled at the creature that held him captive. "Your mockery does you no credit. You know full well what you have done-would *you* be experiencing discomfort, were you in my place?"

The telekinetic bindings compressed his chest and arms, leaving him unable to do much more than shudder impotently at the elder's touch-but his feet, dangling free of the ground, were still unencumbered. He lashed out with one bare, dirtied foot, knowing how ineffectual the attack would be even before the blow landed. But his anger and fear demanded an outlet, regardless of its outcome-or Vorador's inevitable retribution. The elder vampire might think of him as naught but a collared dog-but he would still bite while he could!

Kicking the ancient vampire was very much like kicking a stone wall. Vorador tilted his head slightly, and with a deceptively lazy gesture, caught Raziel's ankle in one massive palm. He'd forgotten, really, how very soft a fledgling's skin could be, so tender without much accumulation of armor to stiffen it. And those soft, flexing toes, the high arch of the foot and delicate edge of the nails... "Mental, fledgling. And if your physical pains register merely as discomfort, I have not adequately made *my* many points." Vorador indulged himself, stroking the back of his talon over the sole of Raziel's foot, lightly to the achilles tendon. One small cut there, and the fledgling would be incapable of walking for perhaps a week or more, and Vorador considered that notion. "I have laid a geas upon you; a collar, if you will. If drawn too tight for too long, it could damage you, which I would avoid." The corner of Vorador's mouth turned up, a cruel anticipation. "Perhaps you can detect it... now?"

With an easy flick of magic, Vorador tugged at the spell he'd implanted so carefully in the fledgling's mind over the last few days.

It was like being hit by lightning-Raziel's mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes wide and blind as he felt *something* yank at the base of his very thoughts. A connection that had been forged while he lay helpless opened, and for the first time he could feel the resonance of the elder's thoughts, dark and angry, crushing him down as if he lay entombed at the base of a mountain, Vorador's lingering wounds echoing in his own flesh. He couldn't think, nor move-all he could do was tremble within his bonds, shivering as pain layered upon pain.

It lasted but a moment-a terrible, eternal moment-and then the connection ceased, leaving him alone in his own flesh. Raziel dangled limply within the elder's telekinetic grip, panting in relief at the sudden lessening of his pain. _ Why?_ He asked the question twice before realizing he had not actually said anything aloud. Tongue touching cracked lips, his voice hoarse and ragged, he said it again.

"W-why?"

"Why, Raziel?" Vorador echoed, sounding faintly surprised. The test of the pain-bond had been quite satisfying, the channel fully formed and capable, and now Vorador set to tightening up the edges, smoothing over the surface, layering defences so that even Kain would require decades to dispel the deep-seated connection. That young upstart had a great deal of raw power, but one acquired certain artifices, techniques, over millennia of unlife. Kain was many things, but rarely subtle. "Has your Sire not told you? No, perhaps he has not." Thoughtfully, Vorador slid his palm to the back of Raziel's knee. The skin there, even dirtied, was like the ripple of silk in the air. Vorador had always been partial to these most tender of places. "You have developed a degree of power sufficient to raise fledglings of your own - or you will, very soon. And once you are proven, your Sire, I think, will have very little regard for me... nor armies such as I have raised for him in the past. Shall I not shackle his little knight, before the attempt at checkmate?"

Raziel wanted to claw the elder's eyes out-to bite, to kick, to do *anything*-but his limbs were still strengthless and trembling in the aftermath of whatever Vorador had done to him. "Th-that is why? Because you fear that you will be supplanted?" It made a certain kind of sense, though Raziel found it hard to fathom that a creature of such power could ever feel threatened by anything-even Kain. He shivered, a bone-deep cold seeming to settle into his very bones. _Kain_-all unwitting, he had become a weapon against his own Sire. Would Kain ever be able to forgive such a betrayal? "Is-is that why you ally yourself with the humans? To help them hunt us down?"

Vorador hissed, an incendiary sound. The humans, the damned and scurrying destroyers of his race and Janos' - ah, Janos! His talons flexed hard on the back of Raziel's thigh, a deep-bruising grip on the heavy muscle. Perhaps he should hamstring the converted Sarafan, after all. "Never speak of them to me," Vorador snarled, "lest you wish to be deprived of your tongue. Perhaps I will pluck it from your head now, unless..." so very terrifyingly mercurial, temper that veered haphazardly over the very borders of sanity, "...your Sire has instructed you in better uses for it?" Vorador's free hand cupped the line of Raziel's jaw, his talons curving around the back of the fledgling's head. The pad of his thumb-talon lay over Raziel's dusky lips.

Shuddering, Raziel wisely remained silent under the cutting press of that talon, golden eyes fixed fearfully upon those heavy green features. If this were his sire, he might have some inkling of what to do, how to appease his elder's anger. But Vorador was a creature alien to his experience; as angry and changeable as the storms that blew from the sea, and just as deadly. Not to mention apparently intent upon exacting bloody retribution-but how was he to atone for sins he did not understand?

Ashamed of his own weakness, Raziel reached out, hoping against hope that Kain might hear his call. _Kain! Sire … please help me!_

The leathery pad of that thick talon nudged at his lips, oddly delicate for such a blunt and heavy instrument. The silk of Vorador's elaborately embroidered vestment was cool on the skin of Raziel's chest - just slightly rough, where the metallic threads scraped. Even with Raziel held above the floor, Vorador had to bend his head to lay his own lips upon the fledgling's finely trembling throat. What a delectable degree of terror... and such a lovely scent - smoke and blood, yes, but also a finely layered strength, a groundwork for extraordinary ability. There was a... quickening to that promise of power, a hint that perhaps recalled Faustus' talent. And yet, there was so much more than that... Vorador's tongue lapped a warm pressure over Raziel's skin.

_I wonder,_ Vorador Whispered, the feel of his mind like a landslide, issuing the only reply to Raziel's desperate plea, _if your Sire will still want you, once I have had you a few times._

The thought was beyond bearing-that this creature would lay hands upon him, defile and break him past all forebearance, until even his sire would have nothing to do with what was left …. With a scream of purest rage, Raziel launched himself at his tormentor, fangs bared. Black-nailed fingers lashed out to claw at that arrogant face, to gouge at the eyes and tear open the soft flesh of his enemy's throat. There was no finesse in his attack, no thought of consequences-only a primal need to hurt as he had been hurt, to teach this interloper that no creature would be allowed to trespass upon his sire's domain!

Vorador's dark laughter rumbled over Raziel's skin as the elder vampire caught one of those flailing arms, and with casual ease, cleanly snapped the strong bones of Raziel's forearm. The crack was dull, the pain took an instant to follow - bright, white-hot, almost enough to mask the sudden sensation of release as the remnants of the telekinetic bonds vanished. Dragging the squalling fledgling by his broken arm, Vorador stalked towards the odd piece of inclined furniture centered in the room. "Or shall I take your sibling, instead, Raziel?" Vorador queried, a light amusement in his tone as he hauled Raziel bodily up onto the velvet-padded stand, parrying another swipe of fledgling claws and catching that wrist. Metal clacked - the closing of a hardened steel manacle. "He did wake before you, though - I must admit, I would prefer to wait a few years. It is so easy to permanently damage a fledgling that young." Vorador was oddly gentle as he captured Raziel's broken arm and drew it likewise overhead, a palm in the center of Raziel's chest to still his thrashings for a moment.

The only wounds that Vorador took were scrapes across the plane of his cheek and neck, traces of black blood where claws had only briefly parted skin.

Raziel stilled, barely registering as a second manacle was secured over his wrist, pinning his crippled arm. _Sibling?_ One of his brothers was also being held captive? Panting a little in commingled pain and fear, he forced himself to ask, "M-my brother-what have you done to him?" Was it Zephon that Raziel had failed to save? Or Rahab? He did not think it would be Turel or Dumah … but then, all of his brothers would no doubt seem impossibly young to a vampire as ancient as this. The world seemed to lurch a bit, relief and dismay whipsawing his focus as the combined effect of his injuries took their toll. There was the relief that Vorador spoke of only one brother, and not several-which meant that he could still hope the others had escaped, and made their way to safety. But far greater was his dismay at the thought of one of his youngest brethren at the mercy of this monster. Even Zephon, nuisance that he was, did not deserve that!

"What have I done? Much the same as I have to you, however - " Vorador bent his head, inhaling over the place on Raziel's forearm where the dark marks of his talons were already beginning to blossom. It was like bruising a peach, bringing deeper sweetness to the surface, more complexity of scent. When Raziel ceased to struggle for a moment, Vorador lightened his restraining hand, letting his palm instead stroke lightly over the fledgling's heaving chest. Vorador could identify his own kind by the sound of that gasping alone, borne of buried instinct not yet overcome, a little too rapid for any mortal creature. The ancient vampire found the dusky rise of one of Raziel's nipples, and lingered there, the rough leather of his talons catching and teasing. "-he wisely did not try my temper, while you have done little but. I wonder if you will come to heel so eagerly?" One hand still on Raziel's chest, Vorador lifted the other, running the tip of his talon, where the leather was cased in a trace of sharp chitin, over the underside of his thumb. The skin parted momentarily, letting seep a few drops of black blood, thick as honey and far more fragrant.

Raziel could not prevent his instinctive flinch at that touch. The press of the elder vampire's power was too near, almost choking in its intensity, and nothing in it spoke of blood-kin, of safety, the way his sire's touch did. Instead those light touches felt like nothing so much as a latent threat, recalling the too-recent memory of pain. He tried to draw away, only to bite back another abortive cry as a jagged spike of agony rewarded him for his efforts, bone grating upon bone in his broken arm.

Then his head came up, golden eyes pinned in atavistic desire as the potent, distilled fragrance of the elder's blood perfumed the air. Raziel had tasted Vorador before, albeit briefly, and the Hunger coiling cold in his belly cared nothing for pride-it wanted more.

Still, even that could not make him beg; Kain's training of his firstborn had been most … thorough. The very thought of what his Sire might do if he saw his progeny willingly bending knee to another elder was enough to cut through the red haze of need and desperate hunger. Eyes fixed upon that alluring wound, Raziel keened low in his throat, shuddering as instinct fought with his Sire's conditioning.

"No?" murmured Vorador, watching the fledgling's struggle, sulfur-gold gaze ancient and unfathomable. "Not so hungry as to ask for it? Or... perhaps you disdain the necessity of feeding?" Depending on how much the fledgling recalled much of his knighthood, he likely did. So damnably *righteous*, these Sarafan swine - they frequently didn't make good fledglings, and this one had been the most obedient dog of all. Vorador found the nipple he had caressed before, and traced the blood there instead, slow and considering strokes like painting ink onto vellum.

"I won't …" The words escaped without him willing it, guttural and almost more growl than speech. The cool-tacky touch of that talon upon his skin was an insidious taunt, reinforcing his helplessness-and worse, it brought the alluring bloodscent that much closer, so near that he could not help but scent it with each indrawn breath. His lips drew back in a rictus grimace over clenched teeth as he battled the urge to lunge forward, to sink his fangs deep-

-another stroke, and it was too much. "No!" Raziel lunged away, tearing at his bonds. Agony spiked through his wrists, his shoulders, his shattered arm, and he welcomed it, lunging again and again with all the limits of his strength, feeling the broken bone separate, the muscles and tendon tear with each new attempt. _No! I won't-I won't betray you!_ he cried, blindly reaching for a mind that did not answer. _Sire! _ If he had to tear his arm off to be free of this damnable torment, then so be it!

Vorador paused at that first muscular heave, momentarily taken aback. There had been fledglings capable of resisting the dark press of his power, fledglings who fought him at first - his noble Magnus among them. But none, in the face of the potent entanglements of hunger and pleasure and pain, none had opposed him quite like _this_.

The way Raziel's body thrashed, though, recalled to mind pleasures of a different sort. Vorador would simply have to take pains to ensure that the little Sarafan survived the experience, a questionable assumption at present, the way he insisted on tearing himself apart. "Will not *what*, fledgling?" Vorador hissed, pinning Raziel's shoulder to the velvet padding to relieve the strain on that broken arm. With the casual ease of long habit, he bit at his own wrist to draw a smear of blood to the surface, marking the joint between subdermal plates in order that a fledgling might find it more readily... and laid his limb upon Raziel's lips. "For I assure you... you can and you will, should it please me."

The press of that bloodied skin against his lips, the scent of the vitae waiting beneath that armored flesh, proved to be too much for Raziel to withstand. Hunger roared to life, taking over, and between one moment and the next he had bared fangs and bit down savagely upon the proffered wrist. Black blood, a velvet liqueur upon the tongue, trickled over his lips, down his throat as he suckled ravenously, pulling it in with desperate and greedy swallows. The power in that blood did not prickle over his skin, or warm his insides; it was not so tame as all that. It felt instead as if a great fire had been lit in his very bones, white splashes of light bursting behind half-closed eyes as it seared through his veins, his fledgling vampiric struggling to make use of the bounty it had received. All other sensation was lost in the flood, his wounds sealing over unnoticed as he continued to drink, his universe narrowed to the font of unliving strength pressed against his lips.

Vorador watched the fledgling's throat work desperately. The twin fangs in his hide were a intensely familiar sensation, another source of old, unwanted memories. How many thousands of times...? After a moment, as a faint flush began to spread over Raziel's skin, Vorador reached up and, with his grip and a small flex of telekinesis, pulled the fledgling's arm back into its proper position, realigning the bones there, holding the break until the setting began. Lost in the sensation of feeding, Raziel appeared not to notice any of the handling. But that wasn't right, was it? It wasn't the point. The little Sarafan should feel *everything.*

When he was substantially certain that Raziel could bear Vorador's pleasure, he fixed his grip around the fledgling's jaws and pried that suckling mouth away. Even in little more than a minute, the fledgling's visible wounds seemed much improved, though he still was not whole. "Better, pup?" Vorador rumbled, a purr that vibrated in the bones. "You had best be, for I intend to enjoy my retribution... at length." The stand was short, supporting the heavy-muscled curve of Raziel's buttocks but leaving his legs free, and now Vorador caught one of the fledgling's knees as he moved around the table to place himself at its foot.

Raziel struggled briefly as the flow of blood ceased, his grip upon his prey forcibly broken-then lay dazed and momentarily quiescent, golden eyes blinking upwards without seeming to see anything. The pain was not entirely gone, but it was so much less than it had been that the relief was a weightless thing, a moment of heavenly peace.

That moment, however, did not last. Stirring as he felt broad talons wrap around one knee, Raziel rolled his head to one side, frowning as Vorador's words filtered through the haze left behind by his sated hunger. "... retribution?" His mouth shaped the word silently before he said it again, this time out loud. Oh. Yes. There was some unnamed sin for which he must atone …. he struggled to remember what it was, but his mind seemed oddly slow, his thoughts caught in a neap tide, the question spinning in slow, aimless circles around no answer at all.

Vorador pushed the fledgling's knee up, found a wider manacle from the selection the stand offered, and clipped it around Raziel's ankle. The short chain clanked as he treated the other leg likewise. His rumble was a dangerous thing, like the sound of earth sliding away into the abyss. "Would you like that, fledgling? Shall I name them all, while I move in you?" he growled, hands on Raziel's thighs, surveying his captive. Quite lovely, like the rest of the little Sarafan - smoothly corded loins, high-white shading to the most delicate dusky rose at the crease of the groin. Raziel had already experienced his first evolution and his skin had shed even its follicles, rendering it as delicate as thistle-down though far more durable. Soft, hooded cock, quite thick, with a pleasant weight as Vorador ran the back of one talon up the underside. Full, well shaped testes, crinkly-soft... and the tiny puckered ring, tight as if the fledgling had never been touched. Vorador lightly pressed the heavy back of one knuckle there thoughtfully, considering.

At that touch, Raziel stiffened, the muscles of his stomach tightening in mute apprehension, his hands fisting above his head. Surely he did not intend … Raziel craned his neck, seeking out some reassurance that the elder vampire did not truly mean to use him in such a fashion. It was-not unthinkable, and Raziel was certainly no blushing human virgin, but … his eyes were wide in apprehension as he took in the elder's size, all of which was muscle layered upon muscle. Vorador overtopped even Turel and Dumah by more than a head, to say nothing of Kain, and was wide-shouldered and massive besides, with none of his Sire's pantherlike build. How was … surely it was impossible they could even fit together!

But perhaps that was what the elder had meant by 'retribution'-did he intend to take his revenge by tearing Raziel open from the inside with those talons, or other instruments of torture? The thought was enough to make him jerk at his bonds, seeking in vain for some point of weakness, some avenue of escape.

"I-if you must name them, perhaps you should do so without distraction," Raziel said, knowing even as he did so that his sally was a feeble thing indeed. "I assure you, I am quite willing to listen ..."

That caused Vorador to glance up. He leaned an elbow atop Raziel's knee, talon-tips brushing the silken length of the fledgling's thigh. "I cannot recall the last time I was so torn between laughter and rage," said the ancient, tapping a chitinous fingertip on his chin, as if sincerely contemplating those two options. "Though you may not wish to publicize the cleverness of your tongue quite so broadly, lest I chose to sample its other charms." Vorador reached out, summoned a small amethyst pot to hand with that same strange shocking twist of magery which Kain utilized with such frequency, and then an odd, three-fingered glove of sorts. He set the former near Raziel's foot, just outside kicking range, drew on the thin leather gauntlet, and then dipped a covered talon in the translucent stone bowl. "And that," the ancient vampire continued conversationally, "would require the plucking out of your eyeteeth."

Vorador's hand moved, a cool slickness spread down Raziel's perineum.

Raziel swallowed convulsively at the threat, tongue flickering over his fangs. He shivered a little, a thrill of fearful sensation scurrying over his skin at that cool touch upon his most vulnerable flesh. "What … do you want me to do, then?" If he spoke, he angered the elder, if he remained silent, repayment would be exacted upon his flesh regardless. Was there no way to appease this creature?

His toes curled inward, pushing against the table, but he did not try to kick. The cold metal he could feel about his ankles was evidence enough of how futile such an attempt would be.

The tip of Vorador's talon was a tickling, teasing pressure, a ghost of perception. The elder vampire looked at his captive strangely, an ocean of history heaving behind his gaze. "Why, little knight," purred Vorador, savoring every word, "you can _suffer._"


	6. Chapter 6

Okies, so there is a little tidbit that's safe to post here. It isn't up on ArchiveOfOurOwn yet; it will probably be incorporated into some of the naughtier chapters there, along with the rest of the fledglings' plight. I'm posting it here for our reviewer. Thank you, thank you, thank you Pitje!

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Not until the next afternoon did the Sarafan leave the streets. Crouched high in an abandoned attic between ramshackle buildings, Dumah kept an unblinking watch throughout the night. It was dangerous to stay, for bloodhounds soon joined the patrols to assist in sniffing out any trace of the undead, but moving Turel very far in his condition was impossible. As the least injured among them, Rahab crouched beside Turel and offered what he could from his own veins. After that, the younger brother simply sat in silent and dejected companionship, able to do nothing more than smooth a little grease over Turel's burns to keep them from drying and cracking.

Only the breadth of the destruction saved them. Pieces of skeletons - some of which still moved and scrabbled - were scattered everywhere, confusing the scent of undead, and the fires had taken a dozen acres of the slums, leaving the Sarafan with a great deal of ground to cover. Also, bodies to _uncover_ - collapsing shacks and clouds of smoke had killed more mortals than Kain s entire clan did in a month.

Hunting, too, was impossible throughout that long night and the next day. Near midnight of the second night, Dumah dared creep out and seize two orphans who were picking through the still-smoking wreckage. It wasn t enough to heal their wounds, but at least the meal kept Turel from sliding into delirium quite so frequently.

Rahab went to sit near Dumah, who was methodically jerking gibblets of flesh from the bones of the waif he'd killed. These he chewed on until all savor of iron was gone, and then spat out. _The dogs are getting closer_, Rahab observed silently._ We need to move. Probably tonight._

Dumah thought a moment, spat a bit of gristle into his hand and tossed it aside. "No. Kain ordered us to stay here. We remain." He lacked even Zephon's uncertain command of mindspeak, but his tone was quiet, in deference to their plight.

Rahab folded his arms, cursing his sibling s thick head. "If we stay, we will be hunted down - and what do you imagine our Sire would say to that?"

Dumah, for his part, said nothing at all, in favor of tearing another strip of meat from the mortal's carcass. The set of his shoulders was stubborn, his spine straight. Despite his injuries, he was physically stronger than Rahab, always had been. With Turel so wounded, there was no real question of who would now lead, and any attempt to take that right from Dumah by force would go poorly for Rahab.

But Rahab had not lived so long without learning to read his unpredictable brother, his smallest change in expression and demeanor. "He'll do more than speak," said Rahab, letting his gaze drift away, as if contemplating a gory future. "He'll place fault. Just like the time Raziel was staked by that party of Sarafan from Nachtholm. I forget. Were you there when the Master pinned Turel down by the throat, and -"

"I remember," Dumah spat, picking his teeth with a sharp fingernail. "He'll blame Turel for this, too."

"Do you think so?" asked Rahab, letting his gaze drift to where their elder brother lay insensate. If roused, Turel stirred a little, and could drink, but not much more than that. Rahab let himself shrug slightly, as if patently disbelieving Dumah's comment, but too deferential to simply say so. "Of course, we re not following Turel's last directives, now. Or Raziel's, either. If we were, then His wrath would certainly fall upon the ones deserving it."

Dumah frowned. The possibility of playing eldest, of leading for once, was a heady opportunity. Yet now he did see how Kain s anger might turn against him for this whole sorry state of affairs, this cataclysm in which he d had no part! And their Sire's full fury, particularly where the survival of his spawn was at stake, was nothing that Dumah would ever, ever want to risk. Turel hadn t been able to feed properly for months... "But we did flee the warehouse," Dumah whispered, frowning.

Rahab shook his head sadly, even as he cast desperately for some scrap of convincing evidence. "Not far enough," he said. "You recall the time Raziel directed us to burn that village? The one in three-forks. We heaped the bodies together, and set the roof alight, but..." unused to working with fire and fighting their own desperate fear of the flames, the fledglings hadn t been able to char the bodies well enough to conceal the evidence of vampires.

By Dumah s sudden grin, he recalled the event. "You got it, that time," he growled quietly. Then his brow furrowed. Rahab had been blamed for that debacle. Perhaps... Dumah could ensure that again, just in case his Lord declined to hold Turel responsible, and turned upon Dumah instead. How had the three-forks debacle worked, exactly? Rahab had suggested the method, and had been given that task. And then when it had failed... "Where did you have in mind? To go, I mean." Dumah asked slyly.

Rahab let out a slow breath. "Caverns near the docks. They're dark, and untroubled by men, but close to prey." And there were more vials there - including potions of healing. Or so Rahab desperately hoped.

"Remember, this is your idea," Dumah pointed out, wanting there to be no question. He watched Rahab nod, and concealed his sudden sharp grin by rising and shoving the body beside him underneath a pile of sacking. This 'having ideas' business was going to prove Rahab's downfall. "In that case," he said, rubbing his hands to flake the dried blood from them, "lead out. I'll carry Turel."


End file.
